The Strong, Silent Type
by Pen Against Sword
Summary: Yuffie finds herself attracted to the strong, silent type, but her relationships always seem to go sour. Why would her little crush on Rude be any different? Rude, however, is a horse of a different color. -Runner-up for Humor Cat. in 2008 Genesis Awards-
1. Prologue

_A/N:_ Hello there, faithful readers! It's me again, Pen Against Sword, this time doing a Mengde-style author note where I blather on about myself and how I don't own this fandom and I'm trying to avoid lawsuits and -- haha, just kidding (don't kill me, Mengde). Anyway.

This story started out as a one-shot. Then it got bigger. It turned into a shortfic. It turned into what is now becoming a novel-length story with a whole plot and climax and everything. Forgive me, everyone, I know I already have several irons in the fire, but it wasn't supposed to get this out of control. It just sort of came into being. Now, if you don't like Yuffie/Rude, or if you just think it could never work, the right thing for me to tell you would be, "Turn back now. Read something else." But if you're reading MY work, you're used to the crack pairings. So what I wil tell you is this. Give it a chance. You know I follow characterization rules. Try it on for size, and if you don't like it, lambast me. D

Anywhoodle, this is the first time I've done first person POV for Yuffie, and I am finding it delightful and hilarious. If you laughed at something, please, do tell. I love to hear if you found something funny, and I love to hear what you think was absolutely idiotic. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

And last but not least for me to say, thank you so much to my betas, Mengde (always there for me, what a wonderful guy) and VulcanElf, whose commentary has made this piece all the better.

And without further ado, on with the show!

-

My name is Yuffie Kisaragi, and I have always had some specific personal philosophies. Then again, growing up the way I have can do that to a person. After being trained as a ninja, running away at a young age, and then helping save the world with a band of weirdos that were pretty much terrorists who went around blowing crap up, I have developed some healthy rules of self-preservation.

They're not in any real order or anything, but here are a few of them.

Always have your materia on you—at all times. No exceptions.

Never leave your shuriken at the base of a tree when you're asleep in Gongagan forests, especially when there are frogs around.

Always steal materia, unless it's a special case.

The only special case in which you should not steal materia is, say, when the people you are thieving from can kick your ass. So, yeah, don't steal from your terrorist friends.

Stealing, when you need to, is usually the best option.

You should never provoke a silver-haired madman by talking about his mother. Seriously, yo mamma jokes are right out.

These, among many other codes of conduct in my life, have helped me through the hard times and the easy times, the rain and the shine, all the ups and downs of being alive. I think that every person creates their own rules and systems of ethics to live by, and I am no exception, obviously. Sometimes these things work, sometimes they don't.

Hah! How's that for mature, Godo? In your _face_.

My personal philosophies, however, once thought up, _never_ fail. They are impenetrable, indisputable, and infallible. Because I am Yuffie Kisaragi, darn it, and I am very good at being right.

Every once in a while, though, I have to add one or two new philosophies to my list. It doesn't happen often, and they're almost never altered. (I'm right most of the time—I mean, seriously, have I ever steered anyone wrong? And that whole "stealing materia from my friends then getting hung upside down to blazing hot Da Chao and making semi-friends with Elena then having everyone hate me for stealing their materia" thing doesn't count, so just keep your yap shut, okay? Okay.)

My newest rule goes something like this:

When you or someone you know accidentally kills a charming, potential crime lord, make sure that he doesn't have any psychotic girlfriends, and if any person of that sort exists, make sure that bitch gets properly locked up.

I bet by now you are saying, "Yuffie, what the fuck are you talking about? Quit being so vague! Or specific! Or…something. Just get to the damn point!"

But, my dear people, to anyone who might be on the receiving end of this story, I have this to say: the story is a long one, so are you ready to sit down and take it like adults? You are? Ew, get out, I hate people who are that serious.

Well, you all want to know what the hell I am talking about, so I guess I will explain. In fact, that's why I'm writing all of this down. 'Cause I'm awesome, and everyone will one day want to know how all this shit went down. No, I ain't gonna tell you about how AVALANCHE saved the planet and all that boring crap because I'm way more interesting, and besides, there are already like ten million books on that subject. So I'm gonna start at what may seem like a completely unrelated point in the story, but really, it's kind of the how it all began for me. Well, for me and Rude. Oh, wait, I'm getting head of myself again.

The truth is—I have no love life. I've never really had much of one, and I think it's because I try out this rule on the people I'm attracted to, and it just doesn't work. It kills me to admit it, but maybe I'm going about this the wrong way?

Yeah, I know, you want me to explain. I hate telling these stories—it's so lame to be rejected. I think I'll put it in a format that is less painful for me. Some embellishments here and there, but just go with it, all right? That way it makes it easier on me and more entertaining for _you_!

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who was sixteen years old. She found herself fascinated with a noble knight—his name was Cloud, and he had blonde hair and blue eyes, and he was strong and fast and withdrawn and sort of boring at times but oh-so-very alluring and mysterious. He was also kind of cuckoo-loony-wacko in the head, but some girls like that dangerous "I might hack you to pieces in your sleep" appeal, y'know?

Anyway! This girl was a princess of a great but fallen kingdom, so she stole all of the knight's magical orbs and ran away to her faraway land to help restore it to its former glory. However, Cloud and his friends tracked her down and stole the magical orbs back, and they were not very pleased with what she had done—not at _all_ pleased.

So the mean, not-understanding, would-be friends treated her like dirt for a while and called her a brat and didn't want her to come along and didn't trust the poor princess, but Cloud told them that she should stay, and the princess was very grateful to him.

Soon the princess liked to tell the noble knight her secrets and babble away at him for hours at a time. Cloud always nodded his head and seemed to be listening, even though he never said anything. The princess fell in love with Cloud, and she hoped that Cloud was in love with her.

But alas! Cloud had another woman, and he loved her dearly. The princess went on a date with Cloud and even kissed him on the cheek, but Cloud did not yield, for his heart belonged to the woman of flowers. Woe, woe for the princess! Cloud did not see her as more than a slightly annoying friend—a little girl who liked to talk to him until he wanted to be with his flower girl.

So the princess was very sad, but she could not be angry with the woman of flowers, for she was sweet and kind, and she never once said any bad things to the princess. So when the woman of flowers was killed tragically, the princess finally gave up, thinking it would be a disservice to her sweet friend's memory if she pursued handsome Cloud any longer.

The princess also thought it might be slightly creepy and disturbing if she got into the sack with the handsome knight Cloud with her flowery friend watching disapprovingly from the Lifestream.

And that's how the story goes. You can guess that I'm the princess, right? If not you must be dumb or something, and if that's the case, I can't really help you. Sorry, but you drew the gene pool's short straw. Go read a book or something.

You think that's where it ends, right? Nope. I mean, you're probably saying, "Oh, Yuffie, everyone needs a little teenage heartache, right? You had a crush on Cloud, and you were misled a little, hoping he liked you too, but it didn't work out. No big deal, you got over it." Well, sure I got over it! I'm not such a whiney sap that I couldn't move on and accept that I didn't get my man (that time).

But that's only the first time. Then there was this second time, and let me tell you, it was a doozy of a heartbreaker, yesiree. And since I like the whole princess thing, I'm gonna do it again. It's kind of entertaining, don't ya think?

So the princess moved on with her life and wasn't really interested in anyone else for a long, long time. Then, three years after her heart was broken by the handsome knight, she fought alongside a half-demon named Vincent. He was a tortured soul who had done many things that he regretted in his life, and he had spent a lot of time trying to make up for his mistakes. He was kind of weird and freaky and spent thirty years in a coffin, but he was a gentleman, and he was tall, dark, and handsome, and his desire to "repent for his sins" and to be a decent human being only made him that much more appealing to the princess.

The princess tried her best to get into his good graces and be mature, but she wasn't always very good at that since she was a jokester by nature, and she had this personal philosophy about annoying people and stuff. She talked to the half-demon Vincent a lot, about her problems, about her reluctance to rule, about how she felt about the world in general. He always seemed interested in what she had to say, and through being very good friends with him and fighting alongside him in many battles, she learned a lot about him.

Dark Vincent used to be a Turk—an elite force of stealth and intelligence bodyguards. When he was a Turk, he was assigned to a beautiful lady of wisdom and knowledge named Lucrecia, and he fell in love with her. But a bad, evil (also greasy and ugly) man stole her away from poor, misguided Vincent, and she went on to give birth to a psychotic silver-haired madman bent on world destruction.

Not the best choices, all in all, but he was trying to make up for them, and there was no way Vincent could have known that his girlfriend was going to be a crazy bitch, experimenting on her own unborn child.

The sad half-demon man had spent much of his life mourning the mesmerizing Lucrecia, trying to make up for not saving her and just generally blaming himself for what had happened to her. Then he became close friends with the princess, and she felt that maybe, just maybe, she could help ease his pain by being there for him.

So she babbled and pestered her way into his good graces and into his soul, and when she got too close, he pushed her away, but she came back every time, even though he never thanked her for it. And he was grateful, in his own way.

But when the princess revealed that she had fallen deeply in love with the dark man, he sadly informed her that he could never love another like he had Lucrecia. He was under the impression that if he ever again became involved with someone romantically, they were destined to share in his lifetime of pain and misery. The princess informed him that that was "stupid and holy crap, get over yourself, Vinnie, you douche," but he pushed her away and told her that he would never sully their friendship and never taint her innocence with his darkness.

Little did Vincent know that her innocence had been pushed away in favor of lots of naughty dreams about him.

No matter how much she tried to convince him and change his mind, it did not work, until one day, he asked her to leave "for her own good." Cold, lonely Vincent told the princess that she would be better off learning to love another in the real world, away from his old, broken soul.

That was over a year ago, and the princess is still sort of bitter about it (stupid jerk Vinnie), but she's moved on to bigger (literally) and better things. Or men. Whichever way you want to look at it.

Okay, so the point is, I like this guy, and I'm afraid to try my normal approach because I don't think it will work. Third time may be the charm, but my luck seems to have run out. I have no love-life and haven't had one for years.

Up until recently, I've been trying to convince myself that I had no feelings for this man. Like, "C'mon, Yuffie, you must be crazy. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. Why him?"

I mean, he never says _anything_. He talks even less than Vinnie and Cloud. Why can't I find myself a nice guy who shoots his mouth off and wants to go get drunk with me. Like Reno. Yeah, Reno would love to go—oh, dear Leviathan, what am I saying? Reno would sooner throw up than look twice in my direction. Besides, we all know he's gayer than a spring day, _and_ I think he's screwing Rufus (hell, if I were him, _I_ would screw Rufus—he's got all that money, and have you _seen_ that man's hair? It's prettier than _mine_. Even I can admit that—I'm not _that_ immodest).

And this time, I can't even pick a man with pretty hair. I mean, sheesh, at least Cloud and Vincent had pretty hair—hell, I want Vincent's hair. That man has hair like a woman, I swear. Vincent, Vincent! Let down your long hair!

…so I can strangle you with it, you jerk.

Ahem, and not to mention the lack of pretty hair, what's with all the hardware in his ears? I mean, does someone _need_ that many piercings? On second thought, they're kind of neat. Maybe I should get _my_ ears pierced.

_What_ am I _saying_? They aren't neat! They are totally unappealing and not badass or cool at all!

And neither is that dumb suit or those stupid sunglasses. Only a government lackey would wear that suit all the time, and all Turks are government trolls. Shin-Ra isn't even a major power anymore, and they're still wandering around in those stupid things. Although, it _is_ kind of attractive in a business-casual kind of way. Like…I cut throats, but I do it in _style_, without getting any blood on my white shirt.

What? Yuffie, no! Bad! I mean, have you _seen_ his sunglasses? Why does he wear those stupid things, anyway? He wears them inside! I swear it's like he thinks they make him look cool or something. Well, they most certainly do not make him look cool or attractive or mysterious or hot—

Ack! Ack! Stoppit, self! I do not like him, I do not, I do not. He is off-limits, he is not my type—hasn't the past proven this to me yet? Cloud and Vincent didn't work out, and he won't either 'cause he's just like them. Quiet and boring. _I, Yuffie Kisaragi, do hereby decree that I am not attracted to him in the least because he is a big, huge no-no._

There. I said it.

…

Oh, crap.

I'm lying. I'm stupid. This can't be happening.

I have a thing for Rude.

What's that I hear? You must be asking, "Yuffie, why Rude? _How_? _When_?"

All good questions! Which, unfortunately, I'll have to tell you later so I can end this chapter. Whoops, left ya hangin', didn't I?


	2. Chapter 1

It started with a bar fight.

Trouble is my middle name. Yuffie Trouble Kisaragi. Yeah, that's it. What? Don't blame me—my parents did it! They're, like, traditional Wutaian names and stuff, yo. Yes, it is Wutaian tradition to pass the pain of existence on to your children, and part of that is bringing them into the world with suffering—thus, traditional names of humiliation.

Don't look at me like that. Freakin' foreigner.

Since Trouble is my middle name, disaster seems to follow me wherever I go. One time Cid called me an unstoppable force when I was trying to nab his mastered Mime materia. I don't think he meant it in a complimentary way. Not like, "Yuffie, you are an unstoppable force, and I greatly admire this in you!" No, it was more like, "Yuffie, you're an unstoppable force, now get the fuck off me, and leave me alone." Stupid Cid. I chose to take it the first way just to piss him off.

Now that I think about it, maybe he had a point.

So, anyway, it started with a bar fight. A bar fight in Edge, to be precise.

I turned twenty-one about a month ago. Naturally, this meant I was going to go out and have myself some drinks to celebrate. I called everyone I knew to see if they wanted to come to celebrate with me, it being my freaking _birthday_, but they were all busy. They told me if I had notified them at an earlier date, maybe they could have planned for it, but _whatever_, I was ready to party, and I was not going to let partying alone get me down.

Or at least, that's what I kept telling myself as I felt more and more surly about it.

Busy? _Busy_? How could they be busy? I'm Yuffie! It's my birthday! We celebrate dumb old Cloud's birthday, and we give everyone else presents and get together, and yet somehow, they forgot about mine? I mean, sure, Reeve was working on an extra-special project for the WRO, Vincent was out on some sort of information-gathering mission in Bone Village, Cloud was making deliveries to Kalm that night—which left Tifa with Marlene, Denzel, and the bar—and Red was in Cosmo Canyon while Barret drilled for oil, and Cid was helping deliver large weapons shipments with the _Shera, _but that didn't mean they couldn't drop everything and come to my birthday shindig at a nice, quiet bar, right? Right?

Okay, so maybe I was asking a little much of them, and maybe it was kind of my fault for not planning ahead. I guess, really, it was more that I was angry at myself for being a dork and ensuring that I would be stuck with a lonely, friendless birthday.

This led to me stomping my way up to a bar, slamming myself down into a seat with what I think was probably a really pouty and attractive look on my face, and barking to the bartender to get me a Tequila Sunrise, and to hurry it up.

When the bartender, who happened to be a rather large man with thinning hair and a walk like an angry bear, glared at me and demanded to see some ID, I snarled, flashing him my driver's license, where a grinning picture of me stared up at him.

"You don't look twenty-one," he said suspiciously, narrowing his black eyes at me. "You look about sixteen."

"The ID says I'm twenty-one, and _I_ say to get me a Tequila Sunrise 'cause I'm a payin' customer, and I'm tired of waitin'," I snapped.

With one more glance at my license and the birth date listed there, he nodded and went to get me what I asked for. I glared venomously at the table top, feeling something stirring inside of me, something that usually caused bad things to happen. I was angry at myself and bored because I was drinking alone, and I wanted something to happen.

When the bartender came back with my Tequila Sunrise, I drank the first few gulps entirely too quickly, feeling the alcohol hit my slightly empty stomach. Not long after that, I felt that nice, warm humming sensation infuse me, and my brain started to fog a little.

Now, I am not an inexperienced drinker. Despite Tifa's and Godo's separate attempts to keep me away from underaged drinking, they forget that I _am_ friends with Cid Highwind, and he has no qualms about handing me the booze and striking up a friendly drinking contest with me. This, you may already understand, has made me a fairly tolerant drinker—but no one is good on an empty stomach, and even with as awesome as I tend to be, I am no exception.

After my third drink, sensations were starting to fuzz around the edges, and at my fifth glass, my dark mood had turned into a full-blown anger storm. I was bored, I was mad, and I was ready for some action. On Yuffie Kisaragi's birthday, things are _bound_ to happen.

And boy, did they ever happen.

A good bartender can sense when someone has had enough, and I was already at my limit. A good bartender has a nose for those types of things—he knows trouble when he sees it, and it's like throwing alcohol into the mix is just a magnifying glass for a good bartender's super-trouble-sensors. Apparently, I had picked the wrong bar—or the right bar, in retrospect—because the bartender was a good one.

"Miss, I believe you've had enough," he said firmly when I ordered another Tequila Sunrise.

"I'll know when I've had enough, _sir_," I said with a peculiar drawl that only ever entered my voice when I was drunk or getting there.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I know what I'm doing, and you are at your limit for the night. I can see it in your eyes."

"Hey!" I protested. "I'll have you know I'm—"

"Is there a problem here?" a suave voice interjected. I looked to my right, where a man had sidled up and taken the empty seat there.

He was good-looking. He was _damn_ good-looking (or at least, he was from what I remember, and I don't know how reliable that information is now), with soft brown eyes rimmed with dark lashes, close-cropped dark curly hair, and just the softest touch of stubble along his strong jaw, giving him a rugged look.

"As a matter of fact," I said, "there is. This man," I dragged out, pointing in his direction, "is refusing me my alcohol, and that is simply a crime."

Giving me a smoky glance out of the sides of his eyes, the mystery man said (rather sexily, I might add), "That _is_ a shame. Bartender, let's get this lady a..."

"A Tequila Sunrise," I chirped.

"A Tequila Sunrise on me, please."

My face lit up. "Thanks, er…"

"Victor," he said, giving me a smile full of straight, white teeth.

"Thanks a heap, Victor," I said, taking my new glass as the bartender reluctantly slid it to me. "I was beginning to wonder what a girl had to do to get a drink around here," I muttered, tipping back some alcohol.

"I think I might know the answer to that," he said huskily, and I felt something warm slide up my bare thigh, toward the hemline of my shorts. If you're reading this, you know who I am and what I dress like, and you probably are already aware of the fact that my shorts don't go down very far. So his hand? Yeah, inappropriate place. Drunk, angry Yuffie does not play that way, boys and girls.

"Get your hand off of me," I growled.

"What's a girl like you doing in this bar, drinking alone?" he asked, his voice smooth as he rippled his fingers against my bare leg.

"I said…_get your hand off me_," I said, low and dangerous and obviously not pleased. Sexy or not, this guy wasn't going to touch me without my permission.

"Oh, c'mon, babycakes, don't be that way," he cooed.

So fast he probably didn't see me, I whipped my fist up and gave him a left hook across the face. He was knocked off the barstool, sprawled over the floor, spitting a bit of blood out.

"You _bitch_," he squawked.

"_What_ did you just call me?" I yelled at him.

"I called you a bitch," he screamed back, off the floor now and in my face.

I shoved him, and he shoved back. I stumbled backwards a few steps, taken off guard (and still drunk), and so I picked up one of my empty glasses and lobbed it at him.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, whatever way you want to look at it), my aim was not good when I was sloshed, so it ended up hitting someone else square in the back. I winced as it fell to the floor and shattered loudly.

The guy I whacked happened to be big. Very big. Like…whoahumongousohshit.

He turned around, cracking his knuckles, and said in a voice like God delivering punishment to lesser beings (beings like _me_), "Who threw that?"

Before anyone could react, I pointed my hand into the crowd randomly. His eyes narrowing, the man started to advance on a random dude in the crowd, walking right up to him and punching him in the face.

I took that opportunity to leap upon Victor, knocking him to the ground. I could hear a fight breaking out around me, with people yelling, the sound of knuckles meeting flesh ringing throughout the air.

With a start, I realized I had just started a barroom brawl.

Victor, however, took my epiphany moment to slug me straight in the face and pin me down. With an ugly snarl twisting his features, he produced a switchblade from within his clothes, pointing it at my face.

"Now, you dumb bitch, nobody humiliates me in front of other people, and I'm gonna cut that pretty little face of yours up to teach you a lesson."

I was coming out of my drunken stupor rather quickly because of all the goings-on, but I was still not quick enough to get this douchebag off of me and kick his douchey ass. I could feel the blade of the knife pressing harder and harder into my cheek, drawing blood, cutting deeper, and I couldn't struggle because he was perilously close to my eyeball, and dammit all to hell, _I needed that eyeball_, but then the knife was suddenly gone and—

"Rude?"

Standing over me, holding the douchebag's knife-arm behind his back at a very painful-looking angle, was Rude, of the Turks. Yeah, those Turks. The ones who wear the suits and prance around and interrogate people and annoy the piss out of AVALANCHE because they have nothing better to do anymore since Mr. Prissy La-La Pretty Hair Rufus has "disbanded" Shin-Ra and has "given up" doing illegal things and is focused on "helping repair the damages they've done to the world."

Ignoring the commotion and the breaking glass and the flying objects of the melee around me, I examined Rude's posture. "You're not doing it quite right, big man. Twist his arm a little harder to the—yeah, that's it," I said with a satisfied grin as Victor yelped.

I picked myself up off the floor, dusted my clothes off in a leisurely manner as I watched Rude twist the jackass's arm further up—_wow, I didn't know arms actually bent that way_. I yawned, checking my imaginary watch as Victor's eyes streamed.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you uncomfortable?" I blinked, wide-eyed and innocent, looking him directly in the eye. "I wasn't aware." I gave him a vicious kick to the balls.

Rude released Victor, letting him slump to the floor in a heap, then frowned at me as if to say, _Was that entirely necessary?_

"Look, I know you men-type-people don't like it when a woman-type-person—especially one as awesome and good looking as me—kicks another man-type-person in the balls, but _he cut my face up_. He fucking deserved it." I gestured to the cut on my cheekbone. There was a thin line of blood trickling from it, dribbling over my jaw and down my neck.

Rude did not respond, instead surveying the mayhem around us. After a moment of this, he cut a path through the piles of bodies beating the mess out of each other, heading toward the door and by extension, the exit.

I didn't really have to think about it to know what my next move was. I needed to get the hell out of there before the fight ended or I someone got killed because the bartender, as well as probably some other people, would remember who started the fight, and they would not be pleased.

The Great Ninja Yuffie Away!

"Hey, wait up!" I yelled after him, vaulting over some guys rolling around on the floor and following him out the door, which was already swinging closed.

When I stepped out into the slightly muggy night air, I looked around and saw him striding quickly down the sidewalk, on his way to who-knew-where. I don't know what made me do it—probably the fact that he had just saved my life and all, but I followed him.

I fell into step beside him, immediately noticing the extreme height difference between us. Rude was…well, Rude is big, and obviously he was a month ago too. Unless he came down with some short of shrinking disease, and he turned into a midget, and _then_--…anyway, Rude is big. The first thing I noticed when I was walking beside him was the height and size difference between us. I'm well, I'm small and energetic and quick, like a squirrel. Yuffie the squirrel, yeah. Rude is sort of big and broad and relaxed until you provoke him, like a bear. But not a huggable bear. He's a bald bear, and bald bears just don't seem very huggable. At least, not to me, and I consider myself a good judge on all things huggable.

"Man, Rude, you're freakin' tall," I said, flashing a smile at him. He did not respond. Rude was a quiet kind of guy, and I knew that. So I decided to fill the silence for him. After all, I do that with all my quieter friends, and it always seems to work as far as friendships go (yeah, yeah, don't get at me about that whole relationships aspect).

"So thanks for saving my ass back there," I babbled. "I would've been a goner if you hadn't come along. He had his knife on my _face_. Oh, crap, I just realized I've still got blood on me." I dug around in my pockets for some sort of rag to wipe it off. Of all the spaces and pockets and bags and pouches I had on me, not one of them seemed to have a spare piece of cloth. Boy, oh, boy, I was sucking majorly.

I looked up as something white flashed into my vision, inches away from my nose. Rude was holding out a handkerchief, produced from somewhere within the folds of his suit. I couldn't tell if he was looking at me from the sides of his eyes because of the sunglasses, but I took the handkerchief, smiling at him, surprised. "Wow, thanks, Rudey. Never knew you were such a _gentleman_, ya big lug."

He grunted, and I scrubbed at the congealed blood on my face, wincing at the rough texture of the cloth against my raw skin. When I was satisfied that I had gotten it all off my face, I held the handkerchief out to him again. He took it, looking at the bloodstains briefly before stuffing it back into an inside pocket of his suit jacket.

"Yeah, I know, that's kind of gross, and I'm sorry to bloody up your nice white hanky, but you _did_ offer it to me, right? Yeah, like I said, thanks for saving my life and all—that jerk back there almost had me. That's the last time I get freaking sloshed—"

His head turned slightly toward me as I said that, and I stopped talking to look at him, cocking my head to the side.

"Hey, hey, hey, don't look at me like…er…that." Not that he had much expression, but _you get the idea_. "It is, I swear it is! I don't get drunk all that often, it's just, well, it was my birthday today, and all my friends were busy, and I'm turning twenty-one. I was lonely, so I went into the bar, and it just so happens that I _really_ love Tequila Sunrises—they have that sour punch with the sweet tang and it all comes together with a nice alcoholic _punch_, y'know?" I thrust my fists forward, beating at the air as I said "punch." He did not respond, so I shrugged.

"You're not very talkative, y'know," I said. "Have you _ever_ been talkative? I don't know if I've ever heard you say more than a few words before. Are you, like, mute? I bet you have a speech impediment. I bet you can't say 's' noises without hissing or I bet you have a nervous stutter. It's okay, Rude, you don't have to hide it. It's not like anyone will judge you—I mean, if they do, all you gotta do is headbutt them, and then they would have _nothing_ to say. No, really, nothing. I've seen your headbutts, and they are freakin' _epic_, man. I would never want to be on the receiving end of one of those things."

He still did not respond, but he didn't say, "Yuffie, shut the hell up, and leave me the hell alone, you jabbering nincompoop," so I took that to mean that he was reveling in my beautiful and enticing presence.

"Boy, this is has been kind of a sucky birthday—oh, crap, not that I mean hanging with you hasn't been awesome and all," I corrected quickly, "but getting drunk by yourself isn't all that fun, and if you're going to start a bar brawl, you might as well do it _intentionally_, not by having horrible aim. I didn't even stick around to participate—not that I could've done much, seeing as I'm not holding my alcohol too well. I know I shouldn't have drank so much on an empty stomach, but damn, those Tequila Sunrises are just _so good—_"

I realized right then that we were actually at the front door to Seventh Heaven, where I usually stayed when I was visiting from Wutai or wherever the hell else I was haring off to in the meantime. How Rude knew this, I had no idea—he had probably just assumed. I mean, Tifa would take in a Sephiroth clone with rabies who was a vampire if he was sorry enough about being a vampire with rabies, so it's a naturally correct assumption that her friends would stay with her first and foremost.

Then it struck me that he had actually taken the time to walk me back to the bar. "Rude, did you just walk me back to the bar?"

He merely looked at me—or at least, I think he did—behind his sunglasses.

"I mean, you know just 'cause that douchebag got the better of me in the bar doesn't mean I can't take care of myself. You should know that."

He merely stood there, silent.

"Well," I said awkwardly, scratching the back of my head. "Thanks again for saving my life, Rude. And for letting me gross up your hanky. And for, uh, the concern. And walking me to my front door. Yeah."

Awkward silence reigned.

"I'll be seein' ya 'round, Turkey," I said to him, giving a little wave over my shoulder as I pulled out my key and started to let myself into the back room.

As I waved one last time and closed the door on his hulking figure, he said, "Happy Birthday," and turned and walked away, down the street and out of sight.

As I locked the door, climbed the stairs up to the spare bedroom that was mine for the time being, and slumped into bed and exhaustedly rolled into the covers, I kept thinking about him wishing me a happy birthday.

I think that was when it all started.

That big jerk. Wishing me happy birthday. Who did he think he was, anyway? What a jerk. What kind of person lets me use his hanky and saves my life and walks me home and wishes me a happy birthday after not saying a word to me for the thirty minutes I've been in his presence?

A rude jerk. Yeah.

I wondered if I would see him again anytime soon. I wondered why I wondered that.


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: Hello, again, readers! Here is a bit more of _The Strong, Silent Type_ for y'all to chew on while I work on NaNoWriMo. I hope you have fun with it. And may I request politely for you guys to humor me and maybe, if there's something that you find specifically funny, please, do tell me in a review what it was. I have a little quirk where I love to know about that.

-

It started with a bar fight, and it continued with random meetings. And as we all know by now, random is my middle name. Uh, okay, so random isn't my middle name, and neither are those other ones, but it's better than what my _actual _middle name is, and no, I most certainly will _not_ tell you what it is.

About a week after the whole bar fight incident, Reeve summoned me to his office at the WRO headquarters.

"Yuffie," Reeve said, "I'm assigning you to something discreet."

"Discreet?" I asked, lifting my eyebrows at my boss. "Is that code for 'a super secret mission-type assignment'?"

Reeve stared hard at me, considering it, but then his shoulders slumped in defeat. "Yes."

"All _right_!" I exclaimed, pumping my fist in the air.

Reeve looked alarmed. "Now, Yuffie, this calls for the utmost secrecy and subterfuge on your part."

"Yeah, yeah, Reevey, I know all about that kind of stuff. I'm a ninja, _remember_?"

"Yes, Yuffie, I know that all too well," he said, sounding exasperated, "since you remind me and everyone else of it _all the time_, but I need to make this point absolutely clear, since you always _say_ you understand, but you have this problem."

"Problem?" I cocked my head to the side curiously.

"You get overexcited about things, and then you blow them sky-high."

"That is _so_ not true," I protested. "I'm perfectly calm!"

"I beg to differ," a deep voice behind me proclaimed.

"Yeah, well, no one cares what you beg to do, Vinnie," I said, sticking my tongue out and blowing a raspberry at him, which I am sure helped my case like whoa immensely.

"Yuffie, please," Reeve pleaded, sounding strained. "I need you to pay attention and make sure you know what's going to happen here."

"Okay, okay, I got it. Loosen your panties, Reeve, I think they're squeezin' you too tight," I said, raising my hands in a surrendering gesture. "Is _he_ going to be on this mission with me?" I asked, jerking my head at Vincent.

"No, Vincent is here to give me details about his ventures in Bone Village. But that can wait. First, I'll give you my instructions, so listen up."

-

I adjusted the sunglasses perched on my nose and wiped the sweat off my brow. Gawd, was Edge ever _hot_ in the summer time. I swear, I could see little heat demons leaping around on the sidewalk, saying, "Yuffie, wouldn't you like some of Tifa's wonderful, ice cold lemonade right now? Too bad you're on a super secret mission from Reeve!"

"Stupid wig," I said, scratching at the sandy blonde-haired wig insulating my head and magnifying the heat. "Stupid Reeve. Stupid suspected rising crime lords. Stupid tailing missions. Stupid sun."

I continued in this vein for a while until I realized that it was probably not very discreet or subtle to be muttering to myself as I was trying to blend into a crowd and not be noticed. People don't generally consider you normal if you go around blathering with no one to listen to you.

Ever since Shin-Ra had fallen and the WRO had come into power and all that Deepground hoo-hah had happened, street gangs and underground crime rates had risen. Reeve did everything he could as president to keep up public appearances and try to keep the people happy with the work he was doing, but it was jobs like this that me and Vincent handled. I was supposed to be tailing the suspected head of a new, influential crime ring. No, no, unacceptable, we can't have crime rings running amok in the peaceful city of Edge. The Great Ninja (and disguise-artist) Yuffie is on the job!

Too bad it was so freaking hot that I couldn't even enjoy dressing up as a preppy blonde shopper. I mean, seriously, how many times in her life does a girl with short black hair get to enjoy having lustrous, dirty-blonde curls spilling down her back? Not many, that's for sure. And the leather mini-skirt I was wearing was really kicking it. It's not often that a girl gets to prance about, looking like a hooker without besmirching her good name by having people recognize her.

I surveyed the crowd before me, sitting on a park bench and munching on a hot dog that I had purchased at a nearby stand. I had been flouncing about and under-cover staking out the area for a while—Reeve had some tips that the guy he wanted information on, a man named Damien West, frequented a certain restaurant around the park there. Reeve wanted me to follow him and figure out where he held his central office of operations.

As I was finishing the last bits of my hot dog and slurping down the remainders of a slushy I had bought to go along with my lunch, I spotted him. He fit all the descriptions—close-cropped auburn hair, a shade that really stood out; a smatter of freckles across his nose that gave him a boyish look; sunglasses, business-like suit; and most importantly, he was exiting the exact restaurant that he was said to frequent. With a small smirk that I swallowed soon after to keep up appearances, I followed him, weaving in and out of the people in the crowd expertly.

Or at least, I thought it was expertly. I was following down at just enough distance that he couldn't tell I was doing it on purpose, and we had broken away, me trailing down a side street after him. I was darting in and out of the shadows and corners like the badass motha I am, when I ran slap into someone going perpendicular to the direction that I was traveling.

Because of this hitting-a-person-like-a-brick-wall event, I fell straight on my butt, letting out a squawking noise. I just couldn't help it. Whoever-it-was had come out of nowhere and ruined all of my plans.

Unfortunately, the ungodly noise I made was loud enough for Damien and the few men who were walking with him to turn around and send curious looks in my direction. I _could not_ have my cover blown. As awesome as I am, these guys were not fun and games, and it was not a good idea to be caught spying on potential mobsters. I mean, they'll make you offers you _can't refuse_. (Okay, okay, that was a horrible joke.)

I looked furiously up at the person I had run into, thinking as quickly as I could for a solution to this problem. I needed to get the bad guys' attentions off of me, and I needed to do it fast, or else all future endeavors in tracking them would be null and void where I was involved. I could not give them a face to recognize or any reason to think they were being monitored.

Before I could process who I was looking at, I exclaimed, "You douchebag!" After I said it, I realized that I was looking at, of all people, Rude. Yep, that Rude. The bald one who wore the sunglasses and had saved my life in a bar fight nearly a week before.

He looked me up and down from behind the sunglasses. I could tell because his head moved slightly. When he quirked a single eyebrow at me, I thought, _Oh, shit, does he recognize me?_

And when I'm _sure_ I saw the corner of his mouth twitch ever-so-slightly, I thought, _Oh, yeah, he recognizes me. Fuck._

"Well, hell, mister," I said loudly, aware that we were still being watched by the potential mobsters, "aren't you gonna help a lady up? You _did_ knock me over."

"Sorry," he said.

Rude held out a hand, which surprised me, but I took it and heaved myself to my feet, making a big show of dusting myself off and chattering breezily at him. "What's a big man like you doing walking around carelessly like that, anyhow? You could hurt someone knocking chicks over like that! Here I am, trying to navigate my way through these crowds—oh, man, is it hot to you? It's so hot to me—and here you are, getting in my way and knocking me over. You think it's easy to stay on balance in these heels? No, sir, it most certainly is _not_!"

I continued nattering on like this, melding seamlessly back into the crowd with Rude, and when I was sure that we weren't being followed and that Damien and his cronies had continued on their way without incident, I sighed in relief and punched Rude in the arm.

"Oh, heavenly _Leviathan_, you almost blew my cover. If I wouldn't've been a dead woman by those guys killing me, then Reeve would've killed me for letting them know what's going on." I sighed dejectedly and tried to run a hand through my hair, stopping when I almost pulled the wig off my head. "In any case, I failed the mission, and he is _not_ going to be very happy. He'sgonnafreakingkillme!"

Rude did not respond, merely threading through the crowd beside me, impassive as ever.

A thought occurred to me. "But thanks for not actually, completely blowing my cover, big guy. It could've been really, really, really, really, _really_ bad if you hadn't covered for me. Well, you didn't do anything but help me up, but I guess that's your way of covering for people," I mused. "So thanks a heap for that, Rude-Man."

I stared at him for a moment, studying him curiously. "What brings you to this end of town anyway? Where's your side-kick?" I peered around us. "He's not, like, hiding, waiting to spring out and scare the piss out of me, is he? It's not April Fools' Day, is it? I know that's totally the dick-ish kind of thing Reno would do." I tried to remember the date. It was July. "Okay, so maybe it's not April Fools' Day, but seriously, what are you doing in the shopping district?"

Rude did not respond, merely continuing his walk at a steady pace. We had broken free of the crowd, and we were walking down a slightly-less-populated and, therefore, less _goddamn hot_, side-street.

"Hey," I said, my interest piqued, "there's something different about you. I can't _quite_ put my finger on it, but…it's right on the tip of my tongue. Are you…wearing new clothes?"

In fact, he _was_ wearing new clothes. And if they weren't new, they looked new to me, considering I had never actually seen him _not_ wearing that suit that was like, Shin-Ra Issue Patented Turk Wear—guaranteed to intimidate or your money back! So seeing him in a crisp, form-fitting black t-shirt, loose jeans, and nice black tennis shoes, was a shock, to say the least.

Shortly after noticing his new clothes, it struck me that he looked, well, _nice_. Not just nice, actually. He looked sort of…attractive. He looked…_hot_.

I had always known Rude was muscular. I mean, it was, like, one of the rules of the universe. Sephiroth is a crazy fucker, Reno is gay, Rufus has pretty hair, Reeve is a schizo, Cid curses and smokes, Tifa has huge boobs, and Rude is muscular. All very simple facts of life, really, and once you accept those facts of life, you will be a happier, saner person for it.

I had never really _looked_ at Rude until then. Coupled with my sudden curiosity in him after the bar fight, the new clothes were an added attraction. The way that black shirt hugged his torso and gave him a nice, chiseled look, defining his broad, strong shoulders and his rippling abdominal and pectoral muscles was absolutely drool-worthy. The metal in his ears added a nice effect to this casual look on Rude, a guy who I usually _never_ associated with the word "casual." Sure, yeah, I associated him with words like "headbutt" and "stony" and "boring" and "bald" and "scary" and "huge," but definitely not anything like "casual."

Surprisingly and very suddenly, I realized that I liked that look on him. I _really_ liked it.

"Wow, Rude, I thought that suit was your skin or something, like, maybe you had had it tattooed on so that when you woke up in the mornings, you didn't have to do anything but shower, brush your teeth, possibly grab a bagel." I paused. "Okay, well, in your case, like…five bagels. But anyway, you'd do those things and voila! Ready and set for work. Hmm…I should do that. I'd never have to worry about doing laundry again. Ick, I hate laundry."

I kept glancing at him out of the corner of my eyes, drinking in his new appearance. I was _really_ interested in the way he looked, and I wanted to study this new, well-dressed Rude a lot more. Okay, well, I wanted to strip off this new, well-dressed Rude's clothes and oil up his muscles so that I coul—_whoa, whoa, whoa, Yuffie. Slow the roll there. Let's not get all crazy because of the heat. Yeah…the heat_, I thought to myself.

Swallowing, noticing that my mouth was really dry all of a sudden, I said, "Where are we going, Rude?"

He shrugged, a very slight movement of the shoulders, and there was a moment of awkward silence before I launched into another monologue.

"So yeah, what I meant to say was that those clothes are, uh, different, and I, uh, never knew that you were, uh, so…_huge_." I flushed to the roots of my very fake wig. "I mean, uh, crap, that's not what I meant. What I meant to say was that, uhm…you're very," I stuttered and stammered, "er, muscular, and you…lookreallyniceinthoseclothes," I blurted.

He turned his head slightly to look at me and nodded, and I could sense approval in his posture. _Wait, what, since when do I _sense things_ from Rude?_ Even so, something told me I was right and that he appreciated the compliment somewhat.

Before I could open my mouth to embarrass myself further, Rude stopped walking, and I almost tripped trying to come to a sudden halt. I looked around and saw that he had once again navigated us all the way back to where I needed to be without me realizing it. We were standing at the front door of the WRO's central office building, me all awkward in my mini skirt and my wig and my makeup, sweating, him cool in his casual clothes and his _hot body_.

"So," I fidgeted. "I guess I'll see you later then, Rude-a-saurus! You have a wonderful day." _In your sexy clothes_, my brain added. No, brain! Bad brain!

Surprising me once more—_Will he ever _stop _surprising me?_—Rude gave me a little half-wave and grunted, "See you."

That was the second time in a week that he had spoken to me, and he had said five words in that time-span. Curiouser and curiouser, as one of my favorite storybook characters used to say. I was intrigued by Rude…er…whatever his last name was.


	4. Chapter 3

When I'm not in Wutai where I can practice and exercise with other martial-arts-type-people, I go to the gym. I mean, with the amount of junk food that I eat, I gotta work out to stay in tip top shape. You could say that I could learn some self-restraint and lay off the sugary stuff, but first of all, if there is one thing that is _not _my middle name, it's "self-restraint," and second of all, resisting Tifa's homemade apple pie is, frankly, a sin, and if you can resist that, then you are obviously going to a special type of hell for people with no taste buds.

So you thought this flat tummy and these awesome legs came to me naturally and with no effort, eh? Well, too bad, so sad, you're wrong, you are the weakest link, good-bye. I'll have you know that I am always in tip-top shape, if only from working out at least an hour a day for the past ten years of my life. Yeah, you know I'm hot.

Anyway, Edge is, conveniently enough, home to one of the central offices of the WRO, like I mentioned before. Because of the WRO's rising popularity and influence, funds were plentiful, and because of those funds, the WRO's building in Edge was large, with lots of stories. One of those stories just so happened to be a gym, and surprise, surprise! I work out at that gym, being an employee of the WRO and all. It gets me _privileges_ (and by this I mean…er…the gym, a salary, and access to the company coffee-room—woohoo).

And guess who I met at the gym? I'll give some hints for the slower of you out there. He's tall, he's muscular, he looks _really_ good in casual clothes (or so I had newly discovered), he's bald, he doesn't talk much, and he used to work for Shin-Ra.

That's right! You guessed it! My old friend Mr. Keeps-Randomly-Appearing-In-My-Life-Man!

So as I was heading over to the butterfly machine, I saw someone bench-pressing a massive amount of weight, like, whoa. I probably could only lift _one_ of the discs on there, using _two hands_. When I came around the side, craning my neck to see who it was as I traveled over to the few free machines, I realized it was Rude, steadily and almost with ease, hefting the weights up and down.

He was clad in a thin, tightly-stretched muscle shirt, wearing regular old black gym shorts with some nice white tennis shoes. Stopping in my tracks, I once again took the opportunity to admire his rippling muscles. There was a light sheen of sweat dusting his body, making his head shine and giving him a sort of wet, enticing look.

I shook my head and dropped my gym bag by the butterfly machine, determined to get on with what I was here to do and not pester Rude again. He had had enough of me, I was sure, and the last thing I wanted to do was bother him while he was exercising. Besides, I had things to do. I couldn't bother to grace him with my amazing and lovely presence that day.

While I pumped my arms, working up a good, healthy sweat, I mused about the Turks and the WRO. Despite Reeve's and Rufus's combined evasiveness when asked about the circumstances behind the WRO's mysterious supply of funding, it was obvious that Rufus was using his oodles of money to help the WRO out a little bit. Okay, more than a little bit, if the WRO Tower in Edge was any indication. It made sense that Rufus would have some sort of office in this building—in fact, I had seen him around a couple of times, on the way to talk to Reeve or on the way back from talking to Reeve.

And where Rufus went, the Turks went. Even though they weren't really called that anymore. As far as the public knew, when Shin-Ra had been disbanded, the Turks had gone with them. After all, if there was no evil mako-hoarding organization ruling over the world with a corrupted iron fist, then why would they need a sneaky organization of bodyguards to protect them? But I knew better than that, just like anyone with a brain did. Shin-Ra was still around, but under Rufus's hand, they were trying to make amends for their wrongdoings, and if the not-Turks had to do a little headbusting and knuckle-cracking to help with that, then they would.

So I guess technically, if they aren't employees of the Shin-Ra Electric Power Company, the not-Turks are now employees of WRO. As far as I know, though, they're doing the same things they always did, except this time, they're doing it for the WRO, a company which has nicer, different-er aims than Shin-Ra did. Like…y'know, helping the poor and aiding the weak and not sucking the Planet dry like a leech.

Even though I told myself to not pay any attention at all to Rude, nope, not gonna do it, not gonna look, no he is _not that attractive_—I still found myself tracking his progress across the gym as I pretended not to notice him.

You know, I'm a ninja extraordinaire, great at what I do. Great at subterfuge and subtlety, amazing at blending in with my surroundings and being extra sneaky. I mean, how else could I have snatched Cloud's mastered Knights of the Round materia and given it back to him for his birthday? An amateur does not just steal things from Cloud Strife, nono. It takes skills and brains, babeh, and I have plenty of those.

It seemed, though, that I was just not doing well around Rude. I wasn't very good at showing my good points around him. I say this because of, well, the whole "starting a bar fight" incident and that whole "being recognized and almost blowing my cover" thing. And this time it was because as I was trying to catch darting glances of him, he looked up at several points, and I was _sure_, just _dead sure_, that he was looking me in the eye from behind those freakin' sunglasses of his. Stupid glasses.

Whatever, I was not going to acknowledge him. It wasn't like we were _friends_ or anything. A couple of random meetings and walking me to safety does not friends make, nope nope not really. Saving my life did not make him my friend, or at least I didn't think it did, oh, crap were we friends? Should I have been acknowledging his presence? _Whatever, I'm thinking way too hard about this. Gawd._

But when he made his way toward the men's showers, my eyes widened at the thought of Rude…in the showers…without any clothes. And when someone is without any clothes, that must mean that they are…n…

_Naked._

_Holy crap, Yuffie, stop thinking about this! It's not important. I mean, you don't care about Rude being naked! It's not like you _want_ to see him without clothing, with hot, steamy water dripping down his rock hard abs and—_

_WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?_

_Okay, okay, treadmills, going to clear my mind, going to do some running, going to stop thinking about Rude naked, even though he is really muscular and hot. Fuck, I've gone insane. I've lost it. Cuckoo, crazy, looney, wacko._

_That's okay, though. They have help for people like you, Yuffie. There are places you can go, people you can talk to. "Hello, my name is Yuffie Kisaragi, and I am randomly attracted to men who are huge ex-assassins."_

As I continued this internal monologue, time flew by. I realized I wasn't getting a _real_ workout from the treadmill setting I was on, so I upped the speed, not really paying attention to what I was doing. As I had set my finger on the "increase speed" button, Rude walked out of the shower in more casual clothing—a dark green button-down shirt over a white t-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes, and my jaw dropped. Before he could see me, I snapped my teeth together with a _click_, watching him walk by my row of treadmills, headed to the door.

Somehow, in my distraction, I had forgotten that my finger was still on the "increase speed" button, and the treadmill was going so fast that I could no longer keep up with it. Or, well, I _could have_, if Rude hadn't been distracting me! Stupid Rude with his stupid muscles.

Because the treadmill was going so fast and just going faster (seriously, do those treadmills have a speed limit on them? I gotta talk to Reeve about getting safety regulations for that stuff), I tripped over my own feet and started to fall _just_ as Rude was talking by me. With a loud yelp, I watched as, almost in slow motion, the moving belt of the treadmill got closer and closer to my face. Or was it that my face was getting closer and close to the belt of the treadmill?

_Hello there, treadmill belt-y thing. I don't believe we've met. Let me introduce you to a close friend of mine—my face._

Right before I met with extreme pain and friction burns to the face, I came to a sudden, heart-pounding halt, suspended a few inches above pain and doom. Slowly, carefully, I was pulled to a standing position as I heard the beep of the treadmill being turned off. Eyes wide, breath coming way too short and quick, I looked up to see that it was Rude who had stepped around the side of the treadmill and caught me by the back of my shirt.

He frowned at me and said, "Pay more attention."  
_You have no idea how much attention I was paying._ "Uh, yeah, duly noted and all, Rude-Man. Thanks for saving my skin for, like, the third time in two weeks, buddy old pal."

He nodded, releasing the back of my shirt and giving me a little wave as he walked away and out the door. I stared after him, mind racing.

That was the third time Rude had saved my sorry ass from getting hurt. I was going to have to think of some way to really thank him, and I was also going to have to stop making myself look stupid in front of him. For someone who helped save the world, I sure did know how to look like a tremendous, flailing pile of failure.

-

This isn't to say that I looked like a melty pile of uber-lame _all_ the time, however. There were some occasions—like the time I mentioned before—where Rude saw me and must have known that I was always cool—well, as long as he wasn't there. My theory was that Rude had some sort of Awesome Negation Field, and whenever I set eyes on him, all my Awesomeness was sapped away, and he used it to enforce his aura of coolness and stoic-osity.

What I am getting at is that there were a few times I actually impressed (at least, I _think_ I did) Rude. One of those times occurred a little while after that whole almost-rearranging-my-face-on-the-treadmill incident. Unfortunately, I didn't really make a good impression on Rude consciously. It just sort of…happened.

You know me, defender of the weak, crusader of justice (unless it has to do with stealing—I'm _all_ for some well-placed thievery), just generally a good Samaritan. Heck, I'm not even a _good_ Samaritan. I'm so good, I'm a _great_ Samaritan.

So there I am a couple of days later, shopping, strolling around the marketplace in Edge. And if you know Edge, you know there's no place where the buildings aren't, like, a gazillion stories high (okay, so gazillion isn't a number—I'll go with "bajillion"). The marketplace is ringed with really high apartment buildings where lots of cramped little families live.

Ever since Midgar was destroyed by Meteor, people (and by _people_, I mean _Reeve_) realized that there needed to be better safety plans in the event of, oh, say, a silver-haired madman who is intent on turning the Planet into a smoking pile of ash through the use of a ginormous, flaming ball of rock.

After all that, when Edge got built, the WRO started adding fire escapes and stuff on buildings and organizing evacuation plans and installing emergency sirens and stuff. All of that has really helped with safety issues, so Reeve's done an awesome job, but, ironically enough, that particular day, the fire escapes were the source of the problem. That, or bad parenting.

Anyway, I was at this market, right, picking up groceries for Tifa. Poor girl needed some help once in a while, and between taking care of Marlene and Denzel and running a bar full-time, the woman had me doing all the running around. Which didn't bother me 'cause I love being a great Samaritan, y'know? There I was, shopping list in hand, minding my own business, when I hear this terrible scream.

Blood running cold, I dropped my basket full of food items and whipped my head around to the direction I thought the sound had come from. People were already pointing and gasping, and someone else started to scream, causing _even more_ people to scream. My eyes darted to the spectacle.

"Somebody help!" a woman's voice shouted. "Please, somebody help my baby! Senna!"

I remember my breath stuck in my chest as I laid eyes on what the fuss was all about. About twenty feet away, and five stories above the ground, teetering precariously on a ledge on the side of a building, was a little girl, probably about three years old. She was screaming, and her mother, below her, was screaming as well. I saw immediately what the problem was. Slightly to the right of this girl was a fire escape ladder, and protruding from the side of the building was a ridge, just big enough for her to crawl on, but not big enough to balance on for someone with the motor skills of a three-year-old.

"Oh, _shit_," I breathed. I could tell the girl was scared, and I could tell that if someone didn't do something quickly, she was going to fall. And that would be _really_, really bad, and since I'm so freaking awesome, I just acted on instinct.

I sprang onto the nearest fruit stand, getting a leg up, then landing on the cloth top of it, and launched into a run over all the canvas roofs. It wasn't the best way to travel, and I almost lost my balance a couple of times, but it got me out of the crowd, and it was the fastest way I could think of.

With a flying jump, I landed six rungs up on the metal ladder, a clang signifying my contact with it. I winced as my knees banged on it—that was going to bruise later, I was sure. People gasped, and the noise surged as I felt eyes on me, and as quickly as I could, I scrambled up the ladder.

"Hey, Kid!" I yelled up to her. "Don't freakin' move—I'm coming to get ya!" She just cried harder. _Crap, why can't all kids have a thick skin and serve beer like Marlene?_

"Mommy!" she wailed.

"Stay there, Senna!" her mother called tearfully. "This lady's going to help you!"

I was at the top of the ladder at that point, five gut-wrenching stories above the ground. Luckily, I'm a ninja, and heights don't really phase me, but at the same time, I was thinking, _Oh, Da Chao's Hundred Hats, that's just high enough to seriously break my legs if I try to land on my feet, and if I don't hit my head, I'll probably live to be maimed for life. YAY!_

I was on the ledge, just a few feet away from the little girl, but definitely not close enough to grab her. She was at the corner of the building, where the bricks formed a ninety degree angle, and this really did not look good. She was wobbling, her little knees shaking.

"Just stay there," I said to her soothingly as I sidled along the edge. "I'm going to come and get you, and we're going to get down off this ledge so you can hug your mommy, and then I'll go get a stiff drink and call it a day, 'kay? Does that sound good? And we'll all have a good laugh about this, and everyone will be _so_ freaking relieved."

By this time, her enormous, watery brown eyes were on me, and there was snot and tears all over her face, and I just felt so bad for her, I couldn't even bring myself to be mad at her for getting stuck on a _five story-high ledge above the concrete street_. Fuck.

"What's your name, chicky?" I asked gently as I crept towards her.

"S…Senna," she said.

"That's right, your mommy said it earlier," I replied conversationally. I needed to keep her calm, to make sure she didn't fall off the edge in her hysteria. I noticed that the crowd had gone exceptionally quiet, and besides a dull whispering, I knew everyone was watching.

"My name's Yuffie," I said. "I really like…er…candy. Do you like candy?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Good, good, candy's awesome. And so are balloons and puppies," I said, trying to think of things that three-year-olds liked. Besides Marlene, I hadn't been around a lot of little kids, and Marlene liked to play Dinosaur Attack and pretend to eat me like a tyrannosaurus, so I wasn't sure she was exactly the norm.

At that point, all I needed to do was stretch to meet her. "Can you raise your arm up and meet me halfway, Senna?" I asked. "I think it'll make it easier on both of us."

She nodded and lifted her chubby little hand, leaning toward me. I grabbed her hand and held it firmly. "Okay, now I need you to help me out a little and come away from that corner. Can you take one _small_, _slow_ step toward me, please?"

She raised her foot, wobbly and scared, and I watched with wide, panicked eyes as she tried to take the step, and that was when I saw that her goddamn shoe was untied. She put one foot down, then tried to raise the other and tipped off-balance, falling with a high-pitched shriek.

Suddenly, I was falling with her, open air rushing past me, my breath escaping in a whoosh as I fell one story but managed to clutch the fourth story ledge with my fingertips, yelping as my arm strained. I still had hold of Senna, and she was crying and screaming, swinging painfully by her wrist clutched in my right hand. My left arm was trembling, not used to the strain.

I wasn't sure if I could drop Senna down into someone's waiting arms or even if there was anyone competent enough to catch her before she hit the ground. I let out a grunt of pain as my arm shook harder, and I knew I was going to fall if I couldn't think of something fast.

"Senna," I said through gritted teeth. "You're going to have to trust me for a sec, 'kay? See if you can touch the ledge below you with your feet."

She called up to me, "I can do it!"

"All right," I said. "Get your feet on there as solidly as you can, and I'm going to let you go on three. One, two—" Just as my fingers slipped off their hold, I shouted, "—three!"

I released her hand as I lost my grip and my feet touched down next to her on the bricks. I hadn't caught my balance, and I hadn't really expected to, not with something as weird as the move I was planning, so, swiftly, I wrapped my arms around Senna, and, before I could fall off backward and kill myself, pushed off with my feet as hard as I could, sending us into a backward somersault toward the ground. We were falling a little too fast for my comfort, and I was sure my legs were going to be broken when I landed, but all I could think was, _Thank Leviathan I kept this little girl safe—I hope I get a pretty wheelchair! Oh, I'll make Rude sign my casts!_

But then I didn't hit the ground with the force I predicted—in fact, I didn't hit the ground at all, I fell into something solid that said, "Agh!" when I impacted with it.

After that, I briefly saw stars as all the wind was knocked out of me, and I vaguely realized as the little Chocobos danced in front of my vision that there were people crowded all around me, and there was something underneath my back, and it wasn't concrete…

"Augh," I groaned.

"Oh, thank you so much! You saved my Senna!" someone was exclaiming. I felt hands pull me to my feet, and I heard someone get up behind me.

"What happened?" I asked, rubbing my eyes. I turned around, evading all the hands patting me and the voices thanking me.

Rude was dusting himself off, staring at a pair of broken sunglasses in his hand.

"Rude? What—"

"Oy! Rude! What the _hell_ do you think you're doin' running off like that!" a rather familiar and obnoxious voice called. Reno broke through the throng of people, his bright red hair a beacon.

"Okay, seriously, what just happened here?" I demanded of anyone who could answer.

Senna's mother, the woman who had been thanking me, said, "This man shoved everyone out of the way before you jumped off, and then he caught you."  
"Yeah, more like let you land on him," Reno muttered. "That's what I saw, at least."

I stared at Rude, astonished. "Wow, thanks, Rude-Man. I couldn't have done it without you."

He shook his head. "You saved her, not me," and I could swear I saw something like respect in his eyes.

"Still—" I protested, but he shook his head again and put a hand on my shoulder.

"I don't know how I can ever thank you," said Senna's mother, and I swiveled to face her.

"Listen here, lady," I snapped. "I don't know _what_ you were doing, but you obviously weren't keeping a good enough eye on her, or else she wouldn't have gotten all the way up that freakin' ladder."

Tears rolled down her cheeks. "I know."

I softened. "I guess we all make mistakes," I sighed.

"I will never forgive myself for this. But thank the Ancients that you and that man were here to help," she said, burying her face in Senna's brown hair.

"Man? Oh, yeah, Rude!" I said, turning around to find him, but he and Reno were already gone, lost in the crowd.


	5. Chapter 4

A/N: _Okey dokey, here's chapter four. Sorry nothing momentous happens, really, but that will be made up for in the next chapter, which I plan to post a little early because this one is filler-y. Have fun with it, and if you find anything particularly funny, I'd love for you to point it out. Enjoy!_

-

"Yuffie, I need you to watch the bar and the kids for me tonight."

"Sure, Teef. What's going on?"

She blushed. "I'm going on a date."

I leaned in, wiggling my eyebrows at her. "Ooooh, with who?"

"Cloud. He's taking me out to dinner."

My eyes widened, and then I grinned at her like a maniac. "Do you think…tonight might be _the night_?"

She waved a dismissive hand at me as she ran a rag over the surface of the bar, getting ready to open it for the day. It was around noon, and since customers only really started to trickle in toward evening most times, Tifa opened the place around one o'clock every day.

"Oh, c'mon, Teef! You've been dating for, like, ever!"

"Not really, Yuffie," she replied. "We've only been dating for about nine months now."

"Uhm, Tifa, you're kidding me, right?"

"No, I'm not. It's nine months, if I remember correctly. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about my calculations?" She cocked her head at me.

"No, you silly sap!" I said, throwing my hands into the air. "Officially 'dating,'" –and here I made air quotes with my fingers— "or not, you've been in love with each other for _years_ now."

She blushed again. "No, not really, Yuffie."

"Whatever," I said, waving a hand in her face, mocking her earlier gesture. "Just because Cloud has all the emotional experience of a spoon doesn't mean that he wasn't in love with you. And don't try to convince me that _you_ weren't in love with _him_, Tifa. Because Yuffie knows, oh, yes." I tapped the side of my head, making squinty eyes at her.

She tittered. "Yeah, you're right about me, at least, but I wouldn't count on it with Cloud. I mean, after Aerith…"

"Ah, don't start with that crap. You know I'm right."

She stopped trying to argue with me, a hint of Tifa-like exasperation in her eyes. "Fine. So can you watch the bar for me tonight? I'm not interrupting any plans, am I?"

"Nope! I have no life. Unlike you, I have no sexy boyfriend to keep me company and take me on fancy dates, so I make out with my job instead."

"You…make out with your job?"

"Ew, no, not really. Like, I hope you weren't thinking Reeve or something. 'Cause I totally am not into men who have an extra personality as a cat with a Mideelian accent, okay? Okay."

Tifa winked at me. "You'll find someone eventually, Yuffie. Although," she said thoughtfully, "I still haven't figured out what happened between you and Vincent. I mean, it seemed like it was going so well, like you were really getting close to him, and then…it just up and died or something."

I sighed. "I know, and I guess I should've really told you by now, since it happened a good while back, but…it was all so stupid. I really just want to forget about it."

"How _are_ things between you and him now?"

"Better than they were," I said. "It's not really awkward anymore. He and I sort of just…pretend it didn't happen. Ever. Like we've always been just friends, and I never admitted that I was madly in love with him."

Tifa frowned at me. "Is that necessarily the best way to go about it? Is that even healthy? Shouldn't you two, I don't know…talk about it?"

"I'm tired of talking to Vincent about stuff, Tifa," I admitted wearily. "I told him _everything_, and look where it got me. That's the last time I throw my feelings around like that. I learned my lesson, yesiree."

"I wish you wouldn't feel that way about it," she said, concern in her eyes.

I shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. It's all over and done with now."

She looked disappointed at my flippant response, but I couldn't be arsed. Vincent was a done deal in my life, over and out of the way, and I had learned my lesson about feelings and how misguided people can be.

-

"Yo, sexy, get me s'more o' this!" a drunken man sitting some ways down the bar shouted at me.

"Yo, _asshole_," I shot back, "how about you let me finish what I'm doing, and _then_ you can start yellin' at me to get you more to drink, hmm?"

He glared at me sourly, but I merely winked at him, cheeky and trying to ignore my rising irritation. When Tifa had asked me to manage the bar, I had not taken into account the crowds at Seventh Heaven on a Saturday night. Considering that there was usually a very pretty bartender with rather large breasts flouncing about, serving them booze, it was no wonder that Seventh Heaven was so popular.

The thing about when Tifa was bartender, though, was that all the patrons _knew_ that Cloud was her man, and if Cloud saw his woman getting touched or pinched in inappropriate ways, bad things happen. Like, Omnislashing in small spaces, and breaking things, and I most certainly do not mean furniture when I say "things." So yeah, people tend to treat Tifa with a little more respect physically, even if they do ogle her like crazy. Me, I get the pinching _and_ the insults from drunk morons _and_ the ogling! Yay for a shitty night, I'd say. At least Marlene and Denzel had stayed relatively quiet since I tucked them into bed a few hours ago. Thank Leviathan for small mercies.

Tifa, you _owe_ me.

_Tralala, serving jerky customers, oh my gawd this guy just pinched me on the ass—can this night get any worse? Ugh, I—Rude?_

Just as I thought my night was reaching the pinnacle of shitty nights, in walked Rude, the latest curiosity in my life. And not only was he a curiosity, he was becoming a sort of constant.

"Rude!" I shouted, gesturing to him from behind the bar. I had taken refuge there, trying to escape the pinching, prodding fingers of drunk, horny patrons. Bastards.

He walked over to where I was pointing frantically, taking a stool in front of me and grunting in greeting.

"If you're wondering why I'm here, it's 'cause Tifa, the lucky gal, is out on a date with Cloud tonight, and she wanted me to watch the bar and Marlene and Denzel for her tonight. So sorry, you won't get to gaze at her hot body longingly, and neither will the rest of these tools." I jerked my head at everyone in general. "Oh, be right back," I said, as someone called for a refill.

When I returned, he said, "Shot of Jack Daniel's, please."

I flashed a cheeky grin at him. "Oh, well, since you said _please_. And since you didn't grab my ass before you asked." I was almost certain the tiniest smile quirked at his lips, which only made me grin harder.

I turned to get him his order, pulling a shot glass and the bottle off the shelf and thunking the two items down in front of him on the counter. He nodded appreciatively (or I assumed it was appreciatively) and poured himself a shot, tossing it back.

I made chit chat with Rude throughout the evening as I served drinks and kept things going smoothly in the bar. Occasionally he nodded at me as he nursed his drink, but mostly, for some reason I couldn't place, it was just nice having him there. Comforting almost. I think that was when I really started growing fond of that big lug.

Trouble started about forty-five minutes after Rude got there. When one of the more drunken patrons decided I was paying too much attention to Rude and not him, he was not too happy.

"Hey, lady, quit chattin' up your boyfriend baldy over there and serve me mah fuckin' drink already!"

I looked to my left, where the man was sitting at the bar, staring balefully at me, holding his empty glass up and twirling a finger above it significantly.

"Hold on a damn minute," I snapped at him, tired of trying to be polite to all the assholes in the bar. "Sorry, Rude."

I turned to get the man something to drink, filling his glass sloppily after he ordered me to get him "some damn booze, woman," letting it spill into his lap. Angrily, and rather drunkenly I might add, he reached for me, and before I could do anything to break his fucking arm off for trying to touch me, someone else's arm shot out and grabbed his roughly, stopping his hand inches from my waist.

"Hey!" the bastard said. "She's bein' a bitch, man, now lemme go!"

Rude shook his head, giving the man a significant look from behind his shades. I don't think the asshat understood that it was a look that said, _You really don't want to do that_, but I did.

_Wait, how am I recognizing Rude-speak?_

In a move that was stupider than anything _I_ would've done, the idiot shouted, "Lemme go, you jackass!" and then tried to take Rude out with a right hook to the face.

Now, don't get me wrong—the guy Rude was subduing was actually rather large, but Rude was bigger. And even if Rude wasn't bigger, you just don't mess with Rude. Have you ever seen a giant rabid bear angry? Well, neither have I, but I bet Rude is way, way scarier even when he's _not_ angry.

Rude caught the man's fist coming at him with practiced ease, then twisted both his arms. I winced when I heard some painful popping noises, and the man slid out of his stool and onto the floor with a groan and nothing more.

"Er, Rude, you didn't just break that guy's arms, did you? 'Cause I don't think Tifa would like it if you went around hurting her customers, even if they _are_ major assholes. Might lose business, y'know. Can't put on the Seventh Heaven sign—come to Seventh Heaven! Get alcohol and your arms broken! The arm-breaking is free!"

Rude shook his head at me, tipping back some more liquor. He paid no heed to the fact that everyone in the bar was either staring at him, impressed, or looking in horror at the man on the ground.

"Well, hopefully he'll only have some minor sprains, maybe some semi-permanent scarring from this experience." I looked around at the other patrons wryly. "In any case, I guess they won't be bothering me anymore."

"Shouldn't have messed with you," Rude said, glancing at the guy on the floor.

I blinked, my face splitting into a wide smile after that. "Wow, thanks, Rude. I…that means a lot. Thanks."

He grunted in response, looked around the bar once, briefly, then jerked his head at the empty barstool next to him. I stared for a moment, and when he raised his eyebrows at me meaningfully, I said, "What?"

He pointed at me, and then he pointed at the stool next to him, and I finally caught on, a pleased, surprised feeling spreading from the tips of my toes to the top of my head, making me blush a little. It was a good thing he couldn't see that with the dim lighting in the bar, though.

Unable to help myself, a wide smile plastered itself over my face, and I went and sat next to Rude, stepping over the moaning guy on the floor and giving him an _accidental_ kick for good measure. I slipped onto the stool next to Rude and only had to take the occasional order for the rest of the night, happily chatting with Rude until closing time two hours later.

When I walked him out the door, he gave me a little wave, a nod, and a brief quirk of his lips that sent a thrill down my back. When I locked the door behind him, seeing as he was the last customer out the door, I leaned against it, my eyes drifting shut.

_What the hell am I thinking? Rude? Seriously? RUDE?_

_Yeah. Rude. Fuck._

-

"What were you calling me here for, Reeve?"

"Yuffie, with the help of some of our other operatives, we have discovered the whereabouts of Damien West's central office of communications, and we need you to set up some bugs there."

"Me?" I fluttered my eyelashes at him. "Why _me_, Reevey?"

He stared at me, a dead-eyed stare that seemed to say, _Oh, fuck you, fuck me, fuck this job._ Then he rubbed his temples and said, "Because, Yuffie, you're our top espionage operative."

"Damn straight!" I crowed.

"_Any_way," he said, stressing the first syllable and giving me a hard look, "we need you to—Oh, hello, Rude." He looked over my shoulder toward the doorway.

I jerked my head around, almost tripped over myself as my neck met its stretching limits. "Rude!" I exclaimed. "Fancy seein' you here, O Silent One."

He nodded slightly at me, hands clasped behind his back.

"Rude, I will be with you in a moment. First, let me finish with Yuffie. Oh, wait, where's Reno?"

Rude's head turned as he looked over his shoulder slightly. As Reeve opened his mouth questioningly, Reno's voice drifted into the doorway. Okay, I shouldn't say "drifted." Nothing about Reno drifts. I think his voice sort of…skipped-ran-barreled its way into Reeve's office, punching us in the face and standing over our prone bodies, laughing triumphantly.

"Right here, Reeve! Er, I mean…sir." Reno himself followed his voice, appearing around the corner and coming to stand next to Rude in the doorway.

"Oh, hey there, Reno. How's Rufus?" I asked coyly, bouncing my eyebrows just once.

Reno smirked slightly, drawling, "Rufus is…_fine_."

"Oh, I know," I snickered. We grinned at each other.

"Ahem," Reeve said. "Yuffie, could you please listen? This is sort of important, and I need you to get started on this as soon as possible. As in…after I give you the instructions. Okay?"

"Got it, boss-man," I said, saluting smartly and turning to pay complete and total attention to him. Contrary to popular belief, I _can_ take things seriously, and I do sometimes. Especially with my job. Oh, I do so love my job.

I listened attentively as he gave me the location of Damien West's little criminal hide-away and told me where I could pick up some bugging equipment. I was very familiar with how to use such things, as I had done similar jobs in the past.

When he had finished, Reeve gave me a level, serious look, and said, "Yuffie, do you understand everything I have told you?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Can I count on you to do this right, Yuffie?"

"You know you can, Reeve."

"This is important, _very important_. We have to proceed with the utmost secrecy and caution, and your performance in the past has been excellent. I expect the same this time around. All right?"

"Of course."

"Report back to me as soon as you have completed this assignment. Thank you, Yuffie. You are dismissed."

I turned on my heel, walking quickly out of the office, ready to get on the job. I had been needing some more entertainment as of late, and this was the perfect opportunity. Even though I _had_ done similar jobs like this in the past, it wasn't often that a gal got to bug the lair of a potential crime lord. Oh, excitement and thrill-seeking, how I love thee!

Rude gave me a nod on the way out, and Reno smirked at me some more. I grinned at Rude, nodded at Reno, and left the office, ready to get my hands dirty.


	6. Chapter 5

From my perch on the rooftop several buildings away, I peered through my binoculars at the doors of what I was pretty sure was the address Reeve had given me. The building was actually a movie theater, as Reeve had informed me, but I was not there to buy popcorn and hold hands with my date. The loud noises and the bustling activity of this movie theater actually concealed something else.

In the basement and back rooms of this movie theater, Damien West was holding his base of meetings and operations. Two things—the noise of the big screens and the traffic of hundreds of people—were the keys to keeping his actual purposes masked. According to Reeve's intelligence, if someone wanted to meet with Damien West or his associates, or if there was a meeting going on, one merely had to know what ticket to purchase. The ticket in question was to a movie not displayed on the theater's many screens and not advertised in the theater itself. But if you knew the ever-changing code-name, you could actually ask to buy a ticket that would allow you into the secret back rooms of the theater, among Damien West and his associates.

The WRO was not entirely sure what West was doing (I, myself, entertained the idea that maybe he was a superhero, and _really_, this whole thing was a cover-up for how he was the leader of a superhero league, and this was actually his superhero _lair_, but then I remembered that the WRO and AVALANCHE kind of _are _the superheroes of Gaia, so, uh, yeah), but we had suspicions that it was illegal and that it had something to do with a smuggling operation. Illegal weapons control was a problem currently on the rise for the WRO. Not that the average citizen isn't allowed to protect himself or herself, but machine guns and low-level explosives just should not be open to the public. Bad things happen when ordinary citizens decide they want to blow things up. Especially if they have the technology to do that.

So it was my job as Yuffie Kisaragi, the Single White Rose of Wutai, ninja extraordinaire, and great materia hunter (don't you just love my titles?) to help stop such nefarious deeds as the ones Damien West and his cronies were trying to pull off!

Twilight had already fallen on Edge, which was the perfect time for me to do what I needed to do. The movies are busier as it gets darker, when people have completed work for the day and simply want to kick back, relax, and have some dinner and see a flick. So, of course, West would want to conduct his business when the theater is busier, when it looks less suspicious for lots of people coming to the place. I wasn't sure how many people West was connected with at that point, but it must have been alarming enough for Reeve to want to bug him. In any case, it meant that I would have to slip in and look natural and find a way into the secret back rooms.

I navigated my way back to the alley from which I had climbed the fire escape before. I strolled nonchalantly to the large glass window at the front of the theater, behind which was the ticket booth.

"May I help you?" inquired a young woman with a perky nose. I immediately disliked her, if only because she stared at the world around her with too-wide-eyes. Reminded me of a hyperactive dog or something.

"Yeah, can I get a ticket to the next showing of, er…" I thought fast, staring above her head to the sign that displayed the movies currently playing. "The next showing of _Big Trouble in Little Wutai_?" That particular show was on in an hour, which gave me plenty of time to survey the inside of the building and check out the screen where my movie was playing. "Thanks," I said to her, flashing a polite smile.

"Enjoy your movie!" she chirped, and I resisted wincing.

Taking my time, 'cause I am oh-so-cool like that, I went and picked up a drink and some popcorn and then found my theater, letting the guy by the barrier tear my ticket. I thanked him and walked slowly to my door, studying my surroundings.

I noticed something as I was strolling along, and that was that there were three doors with labels on them that said, "Employees Only." Respectable enough, I supposed, but with what I knew was going on behind the scenes here (men prancing around with their underwear on the outside, saving kittens from trees, yep), I suspected that one of those doors led to something different.

Before I walked through my door, I noticed something out of the ordinary. There was a man walking to one of the Employees Only doors—the one closest to the end of the hallway. He was wearing casual clothing—a nice suit jacket over a button-down shirt and blue jeans—and he did not look like an employee. However, he walked to that door, opened it, and vanished inside.

I smirked slightly to myself and chewed up a handful of popcorn, then slurped noisily at my drink. Oh, yes, I had found what I was looking for, and I had done it in under ten minutes of being there. I rocked, and if it would not have seemed extremely out-of-place and been the ultimate cover-blowing action, I would have done a happy dance. The happy dance is a little strange in public places, though, and I don't think any potential mobsters would've overlooked me if I was shaking my booty and throwing popcorn around in a victory ritual.

I hummed to myself as I took my seat in the theater and looked around. There was no one there yet except me, and I could tell the cleaners hadn't come in to get rid of the mess from the last movie shown. There was popcorn strewn everywhere and discarded candy boxes littered the floor in all directions. A young couple came in shortly after me, obviously trying to get some alone time for romance (or murder—they could've been trying to choke each other with their tongues, from the looks of it). I soon ousted them after they got tired of me spitting popcorn into the backs of their heads. Wads of drooly popcorn in your hair just does _not_ set the mood.

After they left, I looked around and took note of the fact that the ceilings were extremely high, no matter where you were, and I realized that, against what I had been hoping, there would be no way for me to climb into a ventilation shaft. Not that I was confident that that would lead me anywhere, but it would've been _so much easier_ to bug the air tunnels above the meeting rooms—less chance of discovery, less work on my part. Why work hard when you don't have to? That's what I always say, at least—actually, wait, I always say _steal first, ask questions later_, but whatever.

So since there was no possible way that I could reach the air vents, I waited patiently, munching popcorn and sucking down my drink until people started to filter in. Timing this as best as I could, I set my stuff down and walked out, headed toward the restroom. I entered and chose a stall, then sat down on the closed toilet, planning to wait.

After my watch told me twenty minutes had passed, I was sure that the film had started and any stragglers would have had time to find their way there. Satisfied that I had waited long enough (and gawd, was it ever _boring_ to wait that long while sitting on a toilet—ew and ew-er, but the stuff people wrote on the walls was funny, like "Lena wuz here" and then "Learn to spell, Lena"), I poked my head cautiously out the stall, saw that no one was in the bathroom, and exited.

The other films were all playing around the same time as _Big Trouble in Little Wutai_, and I had timed it just right, 'cause the hall with the doors was deserted. Glancing around to make sure that I was not being watched by any _actual_ employees, I darted down the hall as fast as I could without making a sound and squeezed inside the door. I took care to stay quiet as I let the door shut with a small _click_.

I looked around. I was in a small, dimly lit room filled with cleaning supplies. A janitor's closet. All right, that was all fine and dandy, but I did not think that organized crime people came here to borrow each other's Pine Sol.

I thought for a moment, trying to be quick about it. There was no telling when someone else might come along and try the Secret Bad Guy Entrance, so I needed to figure out the secret of it, and I needed to do it fast.

A thought struck me, and I began to root around on the floor, pushing things aside and studying the ground. After a few seconds of this, I found what I was looking for. Behind a bucket filled with badly balanced mops, I found a space in the concrete that looked a bit different from the rest of the floor. I could see a faint, square-shaped outline 'cause of my awesome eagle-eye powers. Set right against the corner, so as not to be noticeable, there was a small hole in the floor that curled over, forming a depression with a lip.

_Hmm, I do believe that is a handhold. Elementary, my dear Yuffie!_

I grasped it and lifted, getting nervous at the amount of time I had spent in here. The longer I was in the closet, the more chance I had of being discovered. The trap door came up easily, without a sound, swinging on well-oiled hinges, and I descended the handy-dandy ladder that had been placed under it.

Ever-jumpier, I traveled down the only corridor that was available to me from that point on. I was getting really antsy over the fact that there was practically no cover in this place.

A ways behind me, down the shadowed corridor, I heard approaching footsteps. I was lucky in that the hallway was dim, and whoever was approaching probably had not noticed me yet, as I had purposefully dressed in dark-ish clothing for a situation like this one.

Trying not to panic, I increased my pace, rushing until, to my relief, several doors appeared. I picked randomly, coming into an unoccupied room with several desks and computers. The machinery hummed as I dove under a desk and breathed a sigh of relief. I listened to the footsteps come close and then enter one of the other doors.

That room was a perfect place to start my job, so I reached down to the pockets on the roomy cargo pants that I was wearing—bought just for occasions like these—and started pulling electrical bits and bobs out of my britches.

As I was busily applying a tiny microphone to the underside of a snazzy, rolling office chair (_Oh, I should get one of these for Reeve_, I was thinking), I heard footsteps approaching once more from the hallway. I curled myself into a little ball under the desk, tucking my face into my clothes. Hopefully, the shadows would cloak me. The desk was the type where there was a space to put your legs and to push your chair in, but there was a flap of wood on the front side of that space, making it a convenient hidey-hole.

Against my fervent wishes and hopes, the approaching person actually entered the room I was in and flipped a switch on the wall, flooding the area with light. Terrified, I tightened the protective ball I had formed with my body and prayed to all holy things that I would not be discovered.

I heard heels clicking around the room, and I thought, _Please, Leviathan, do not let this person find me under this desk. I promise that if you work with me on this, I will respect my father and never steal again, and I will burn all those pictures of Cloud in a dress that I stole from Tifa that he doesn't know I've been selling to his fans on the down-low._

Unfortunately, Leviathan has a sick, sick sense of humor, which He likes to remind me of every once in a while, and that heel-clicking sound got closer and closer until I watched as a woman's legs came to a stop in my line of sight. The office chair was pulled back, and whoever it was took a seat.

_Please, please, please don't scoot forward. Please. You don't need to be close to the computer to work, I promise! You don't need to. You can work from a few feet away—it just takes concentration. No, no, no, nononononono—SHIT._

The woman was scooting forward, and as her feet brushed my shoulder, I realized she was wearing open-toed sandals. Which meant that when her toes touched the cloth of my shirt—

"What the—"

A face appeared in my line of sight, and a woman's blue eyes widened at me from an astonished face. The astonishment quickly morphed into alarm as I lunged for her, attempting to subdue her, but she tipped off her chair and out of the way before I could get a handle on anything but her leg.

As I was scrambling for her face, hoping to cover her mouth, she did just what I _didn't_ want her to do—she let out a bloodcurdling, sure to be heard by anyone within a fifty mile radius scream.

"_Fuck_," I hissed, reaching for her mouth to shut her up. When I realized there was no time, I decided that I needed to abandon the mission and put my own safety first. I leapt over her and ran toward the door, but two large men were already busting in.

"What's going on here?" one of them asked, catching sight of the lady on the floor.

I aimed a roundhouse kick to his head, sending him sprawling, clutching his temples, but the other man with him was not so slow. He grabbed my still-flying foot and twisted, sending me to the ground, hard. I saw stars as my chin struck linoleum, and I tasted blood when I accidentally bit down on my tongue.

He planted a gigantic boot into my back, pressing down.

"I think Mr. West will want to have a few words with you." I kicked and struggled, trying to wiggle my way out from under his shoe so I could beat his hulking ass. "Ah, ah, ah," he said, sounding almost playful, like he was enjoying himself. "Calm down, 'cause you ain't goin' nowhere anytime soon. Keep struggling like that, and I'll have to do something you won't like." This made me wiggle harder, swearing as I did so.

"Oh, well," I heard him say. "You asked for it."

I felt something strike me across the back of the head, hard, and I saw stars, and then everything went dark.

-

I woke up with my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth, unable to see anything around me. At first, I panicked, thinking I was blind, but then I remembered what had happened before I woke up, trying to summon everything and put it in proper order in my head.

Speaking of my head, it hurt. A lot. Like…it felt as though there were ten angry beavers, a marching band, and a drunk Cid cavorting in my skull cavity, and my brain was dancing to the beat of the drums at ninety-miles-per-hour. _Why does my head feel so bad?_

Oh, right. That nasty whack I took to my skull.

I was probably concussed. That was why I was feeling so sluggish. Mm, yay, concussions. _Focus, Yuffie_, the sensible voice inside me hissed. _Get off your ass and do something! You have to get out of here._

Okay, despite the concussion, I was going to do something, I was going to get out of here, I was going to—

Fuck, my hands and feet were stuck. Stuck by what I wasn't sure because I couldn't see anything. At this point, I was coming out of my haze enough to realize that the source of my eyesight blockage was some sort of cloth blindfold. From behind it, I could make out indistinct shapes, but that was about it.

_All right_, I thought hazily. _I think I have a concussion. How long have I been out? I don't know. Dammit. If I was unconscious at all, it's probably a concussion. That's not good. I'm not really at my, y'know, quickest when I have a concussion. Not that I've had too many concussions before, but I've had them once or twice, and I get all confused and sluggish. Yay, sluggishness!_

Part of me realized that I was thinking even more disjointedly than usual, and that same part of me realized that it was the concussion, but then that part of me was drowned out by the part of me that felt slightly nauseous and dizzy.

_Okay, okay, all right, yes, get ahold of yourself, Yuffie, you've got to find your way out of this situation. There's no telling where you are or what's going on or if anyone's coming to save you. Reeve's probably pissed that you fail so hard at everything, and he's probably going to fire you for this, but whatever, just get yourself out of this. Think. Think think think._

I wiggled a bit, testing the bonds that I now recognized as some sort of ropes holding my hands and feet down to, er…something. I wasn't sure what. Probably a chair, judging from the way I was sitting. Or at least the way I _felt_ I was sitting. There really was no telling if I was right, what with the way my head was throbbing.

First things were first, though, so I started working on a way to get my eyesight back. Despite how it made my head pulse like all the blood in my body was having a party in my cranium, I craned my neck and started pushing the blindfold off my face with my shoulder. It took some real effort, but the thing started to slide up a bit.

Before I could get it all the way off, however, something I assume was the door being thrown open went _bang_! I jumped, jerking my head back into a normal position, hoping whoever-it-was had not seen me trying to survey my surroundings.

My problems were solved (well, one of them) when the blindfold was ripped off my face violently, making me wince and then snarl at the person. I was faced with Damien West himself and another woman with short blonde hair and a fierce scowl on her face.

I did my best to grin at them. "Hey, tell your man thanks for the concussion, Damien. Great souvenir to take home and all. Something I can show my kids, y'know? 'Hey, have you ever heard about the time Mom failed that mission and got this scar on her head?'"

He leaned down to my face, very close, and met my gaze. His eyes were a very striking shade of amber. "Who are you, and who sent you?"

"Oooh, you're direct. I like that," I said.

In two quick strides, the woman was in front of me, and before I could register it, she had slapped me across the face, hard. My ears rang and my head gave a tremendous ache, as if to say _Goddammit, keep your mouth shut, Yuffie. I can't take much more of this._

I grinned at her, trying to keep my eyes focused. "Oh, _you_. Don't go for the head—it makes the victim fuzzy, and they'll have trouble remembering things."

Slowly, West said, "I'm going to ask you this again. Who are you, and who sent you?"

"Your looks are really disarming," I mused quietly. "You look very…boyish and innocent. I sort of expect you to ask me to play catch with you, or maybe you'll tell me I have cooties."

He grabbed me by the ear and began to twist—in a concentrated effort to keep from betraying how much that _fucking hurt_, I plastered on a very false grin. "Oh, yeah, baby, I _like it_ rough."

"Damien, get out of the way, you idiot," said the woman.

"Risa, let me handle this, please," he said, low and under his breath.

"Oh, so your name's Risa, eh? What are you here for, anyway? This is a private party, y'know, and I don't need you coming in and slapping me around."

Damien's eyes narrowed. "Who—"

"Yeah, yeah, the name's Marlene," I said, spitting out the first name that came to mind.

"Marlene," he mused, eyeing me. I could tell that he knew I was lying. "Who sent you, Marlene?"

There was a pause. I worked my mouth a bit, as if pondering it, and then said, "Yo' mamma."

_Slap_!

"Uh, could you _please_ stop doing that?" I asked after I had regained control of my brain. I glared at the she-bitch. "Seriously. I can't think of how to be a smartass when you're bitch-slapping me. And by the way, honey, slapping a girl tied to a chair doesn't make you look tough. Take these ropes off me, and I'll teach you what a _real_ hit feels like." I spat at her feet.

"Please, don't provoke Risa," West said to me. "She doesn't like being teased, and you won't like her when she's annoyed."

"I already don't like her," I said frankly. "And I also don't like you, Damey. Now let me outta here, and we can just pretend this never happened."

"You were trying to bug my central office. I can't allow you to just _leave_," he said smoothly, sounding vaguely conversational, "now can I?"

I shrugged, or I did what equated to a shrug in my bonds. "Sure, sure. I understand—it's what I would do in your situation. Just know that I'm fairly important, and there will be people coming for me soon."

He leaned in. "I'm not stupid. You had no ID, but I know who you are, _Marlene_. You're Yuffie Kisaragi, heir to the Wutai throne and savior of the world in partnership with AVALANCHE. Who sent you here?"

The general public did not know of my involvement in the WRO. My face was already so recognizable that if they did, I would never be able to do an espionage mission ever again, which would really be bad, considering that's my _specialty_, babeh.

"I already told you who sent me here, Damey. Your mother did. She's disappointed in you for not calling and says that you're supposed to fold your own undies. She's tired of doing it for you. By the way, boxers or briefs?"

This was my technique. People belonging to the espionage division of the WRO must go through specific training to withstand interrogation and torture. I was the first one through the program, so I pretty much helped construct it based on old Wutaian methods. There are videos of me defying torturers and interrogations. They call my method of evasion the Kisaragi Feint.

Basically, you become an extreme smartass to your captors. Now, some might call this stupid, like, _Hey, Yuffie, isn't that sort of inviting people to torture the fuck out of you?_ But really, if they're going to torture you anyway, then what's the point of being all, _Hmm, yes, jolly good, would you like to come to tea, and how is your sister? Is she well? I heard she recently had a cold? How did she come through that? Did the smelling salts that I told you about work?_

"Boxers," he said, smirking slightly.

"Wow, a sense of humor. I like you. Too bad you're a bad guy. Ever thought of giving up a life of crime and coming over to the side of the good and heroism and moral ethics and awesome, hot chicks like me?"

His eyes looked me up and down, slowly, and behind him I saw Risa's own eyes narrow dangerously. This did not please her.

"Tempting," he drawled. "Now, I hate sounding like a broken record, but who sent you? And if you don't tell me, I'm afraid this is going to get ugly."

"Oh, Damey, the only thing ugly about this is her," I said, nodding my head at Risa. "You and I would make a wonderful team full of sexiness." I bounced my eyebrows twice.

"Though I agree," he said, and at this Risa huffed angrily, "you still haven't answered my question."

I shrugged as much as I could in the ropes holding me to the chair. "Now, now, Damey," I clucked. "Do you_ really_ believe a girl gives up her secrets that easily? I think not."

He spread his hands at me, face calm. "I gave you your chance, Miss Kisaragi. Now I am afraid that I will have to leave you with Risa, who, as you can tell, does not like you very much."

"Aww, baby, don't go," I whined, grinning from ear to ear. In the back of my mind, I knew I was in for a world of hurt, but at the same time, I was praying as hard as I could. _Da Chao, Leviathan, Ancestors, please let somebody come soon. Please, please, please. This is not going to end well. Da Chao, my man, er, men, er…women…er. Uh, Da Chao, my God, please, I know you probably weren't pleased about that time when I took a giant, neon-orange bucket of paint and slathered giant, glowing orange moustaches and googly glasses on all your faces, but I swear, I _really_ am sorry about that._

Risa approached me and laid her hand against my face, her fingers cool and soft, her nails long, red, and well-manicured.

"I don't appreciate it when other women hit on my Damien, Miss Kisaragi," she said, stroking my hair back from my forehead.

"Oh ho ho," I guffawed. "_Your_ Damien? Are you sure he's all that interested in you, sister? He seemed pretty _interested_ in me just now. What is it? Are you not good enough in the sack? Isn't that the only purpose girls like you have? I mean, if you're bad in bed, then I guess your life is just meaningless. No wonder Damien was giving me the eye."

"Shh," she said softly, eyes narrowed to slits. "Please stop talking—you're only going to bring yourself more misery in the end." Very calmly, in a low, menacing voice, she said, "I am going to scar that pretty little face of yours, and then we'll see how attractive you are."

She raised her hand, curling it into a claw and with great relish, swiped her nails straight across my face, from my right temple to my left cheek, grazing my eyelid. The stinging was terrible, and there was blood dripping into my right eye, trickling into the corner of my mouth. I gritted my teeth and bit back a cry of pain.

"Holy fuck, you're one melodramatic bitch," I said, spitting blood onto her crisp white blouse. "I mean, seriously, you think I won't be attractive with some scars? It ain't the scars, honey. It's _everything_ _about me_. I am _badass_. So—you fail, thanks, don't come again."

Her ruby red lips curled as the first spasms of pain washed over me. I coughed, curling into myself as much as I physically could under the bonds. "What the _fuck_ did you do to me?"

She laughed softly and wiped the blood from her fingernails onto her skirt. "I poisoned you, silly. I make my nail polish with an organic poison. But don't worry—you won't die. You'll just be in the most agonizing pain of your life for a few hours."

"Oh, sounds _awesome_," I wheezed, biting back a scream.

"Have fun with that," she said as she exited. "When you're ready to tell us what we need to know, just call for us."

When the door closed behind her, and I was sure she was completely gone, I screamed. I screamed and screamed and felt like I would never stop.


	7. Chapter 6

When I had screamed and cried myself hoarse, I simply wheezed and coughed some more. The pain had not subsided when Damien and his tart returned.

"C'mon, sweetie," he said lightly. "I don't like to see a beautiful girl suffer like this."

"Goddamn, Damien," I hacked. "Your girlfriend is such a fucking _bitch_."

"I know," he said, smiling pleasantly. "Isn't it great?"

"I would show you a _much_ better time," I said, my teeth chattering as another spasm hit me. My skin felt like it was on _fire_.

"I wonder about that," he said, "but I'm afraid that _I_ don't want to be on the wrong end of Risa's claws, especially seeing what they did to that beautiful face of yours."

"Oh, _fuck me_," I hissed as a fistful of agony smacked me in the face.

Damien clucked his tongue. "We can end this very easily," he said as he held up a small vial of clear fluid, shaking it slightly. "This is an antidote to the poison on Risa's nails."

"What the hell is _in_ that polish?"

"A very powerful and rare plant blend. Ten milliliters of its flower's nectar can kill a small child or an elderly person. A couple of drops simply causes extreme and prolonged pain."

"Oh, lovely. I bet the fragrance is attractive."

He leaned into Risa and inhaled. "Yes. It is."

My jaw dropped. "You wear it for perfume? Goddamn, you're messed up." She smiled, cat-like.

"I can see you're still not ready to cooperate, dear, so we'll leave you here, and the next time I come back, if you don't talk," Damien said, "I'll have to kill you."

"Doesn't matter," I said. "My friends won't be happy when they find out I'm dead. You ever been on the wrong end of a Buster Sword? Yeah."

He smirked. "I have ways, and I know people, darling, so don't threaten me when you're in no position to. Later." He and his tart left me there, torn apart by spasms.

-

When the pain finally subsided some time later, it left my body like a giant empty carcass, filled with nothing but exhaustion. Despite my best efforts and my better judgment, my eyes slipped closed and I drifted off to sleep. That, or I passed out—at that point, I was so tired there really wasn't a difference.

I woke some time later to a commotion outside the door. I realized that with all that time being interrogated, screaming my lungs out into a drippy pile onto the floor, and being slapped around like a cheap prostitute, I hadn't had a chance to really study my surroundings. I took that moment to start wiggling and to take a look around myself.

The room I was in actually looked like some sort of office, and there were a few desks, and there was nice wallpaper, but that was pretty much the only notable thing. There was one door, which meant my exit options were limited.

However, the noise emanating from somewhere inside the compound, whatever it was, obviously was my only chance. Da Chao and Leviathan had decided to have mercy on my poor, unfortunate soul, and now they were granting me the answer to my fervent prayers. Whether or not the ruckus outside was for or against me, it was my only chance to escape before more harm came to me.

I struggled and bucked in the chair. There was not a whole lot of room in my bonds to move around, but for me, Yuffie Kisaragi, there was more than enough. After a few more frantic, heart-pounding seconds, I managed to get my wrist halfway out of the ropes behind me. With some more ripping and tearing—I could feel my wrists bleeding and stinging—I got one arm out, which gave me enough leeway to work my other hand free. Then, quickly, knowing I was running out of time, I frantically worked at the knots holding my legs, feeling my fingers go raw and split from the rough rope, and stood.

However, I rose too fast, and a wave of extreme dizziness and nausea hit me. My concussion was definitely not nice to me, especially after hours of poison having a party in my veins.

When I had sufficiently cleared the silver sparklies from my vision, I sort of staggered half-steadily to the door, having no idea how I was going to sneak myself out, even if there was a sufficient amount of bedlam with which to cover me.

Luckily, I did not have to think about that for too long, as the door opened when I was about three feet from it, and when I attempted to curl into a protective crouch, I almost fell flat on my ass. Even more luckily (there went my buddies, Leviathan and Da Chao, coming through for me once again with some good ol' fashioned Wutaian Royalty Death Escaping), the person who entered the room, to my _immense_ surprise—

—was Rude.

"Rude?" I gasped, my mouth opening and closing like a fish's.

He lifted an eyebrow at me and made a hand gesture, urging me to get up, and even though nothing seemed to have changed about his face, I could tell he needed me to _hurry_.

I nodded, "Okay, Rude-Man, let me just, uh—whoa, room…spinning…" I stumbled as I tried to rise, and when his brows lifted, I swallowed thickly over my surging nausea and choked, "Concussion."

He grunted and leaned over me, poking around at my skull until he found the lump at the back. His mouth turned down at the corners, and before I could say anything else, like, "I'm _fine_. The spinning—that's got to be the Planet's natural rotation, right? I just have heightened senses because I'm awesome, and I can feel things like that," he grasped me around the middle and hefted me onto his back.

"Hold on," he said.

"Aye aye, cap'n," I muttered into his ear, clinging like a monkey to his back. Haha, get it? Monkey on his back? Ah, shut up.

I gripped him for dear life as he ran along, trying not to get jostled off by his long, rough strides. We were in a long hallway, the same one I was sure I had been creeping down mere hours ago, or at least, it was one similar to that, and I could hear running footsteps, and before I knew it, we were at a corner, and as we turned it, I saw the ladder that led out of here, and I couldn't _believe_ our luck.

"Stop right there," Damien West said. Rude froze. "Now turn around, or I'll shoot you in the back. Actually, I'll shoot _her_ in the back, and since you came all this way to save her, I think that you probably don't want that."

Slowly, Rude pivoted on his heel, facing Damien, effectively shielding me with his body. The man in question was standing with his feet apart, braced, with some sort of pistol in his grip (I never was all that good with shooty-weapons—I just know that one end goes bang, and you point that end _away_ from your face), directed at Rude.

"Risa, my love," he called, slightly over his shoulder, never taking an eye off of Rude.

"Yes, darling?"

"Are you done checking the damages in the room where the back entrance is?"

"Mmhmm."

"What's going on back there?" His amber eyes narrowed at us, and Risa appeared at his shoulder with a gun in her own hand, pointed at us.

"Well, we've got what looks like three guards dead, ten more are very, _very_ injured, but what's strange is…"

"Go on, love."

"That there were no weapons used. Whoever did it used their bare hands."

West seemed to assess Rude from where he was standing, several yards away. "I can understand that." He paused, seeming to chew something over, and then said, "Give me a reason I shouldn't just shoot you both right here."

I piped up, "Because I haven't gotten to kick your ass yet, sexy" –at this, Rude gave me a peculiar look that I filed away for later thought— "and 'cause my friends and his friends will be here soon, and if they find us bleedin' our poor little hearts out on the floor, they will _not_ be pleased, and then you'll get to see what it feels like to have your kidneys ripped out through your nose by a pissed off bartender or what it feels like to have an Electro Mag Rod shoved up your ass with the little red button pressed to 'on.' Mmkay, pumpkin?"

"Then how can I get out of this situation alive?" West asked me, in all seriousness.

"You can give yourself up."

"Not happening."

I grinned. "Then you'll have to let AVALANCHE and the Turks—oops, I mean, those guys who are totally _not_ the Turks anymore—take you down and bring you into custody for questioning."

I paused, cocking my head to the side as he seemed to think about this.

"And from the sound of it, my boss was right to want you under surveillance. This is an interesting setup you got here—thirteen guys? Maybe more if Rude didn't take them all out? What are you hiding, Damey?"

He shrugged. "What did you suspect I was hiding in the first place?"

"We suspected that you had the basis for a major weapons-smuggling operation going on, and even if it didn't occur directly from _here_—c'mon, I know you're smarter than to have it at a movie theater—that this was at least your base of operations or somethin' like that."

"Oh, you're good. I wonder who the inside sources are. You have to be working with the WRO or something similar—no other company has those resources."

"Damey, honey, are you stalling?" Rude gave me another look. Weird. "I mean, if you are, that's great, but just know that every minute ticks closer to you getting your ass handed to you by AVALANCHE."

"Let's move this to a different area," Damien suggested. "After that, I will figure out what to do." He gestured at us to move along, in front of himself and his girlfriend. So Rude, with me on his back, made the move to walk past Damien in the rather narrow hallway, as Damien moved against the wall to let us through.

In a short instant, as Damien was losing his aim on us because of the precarious position we were in due to the hallway, Rude inconspicuously tapped me on the leg. I knew what he meant even before he signaled me. Before anyone could make a move, I leaned over and grabbed the barrel of Damien's pistol.

Risa gasped as I twisted his arm up, aiming the snout of it at the ceiling, and then she attempted to shoot Rude. However, before she could pull her gun to the right position, Rude punched her straight in the face and sidestepped her, plucking the pistol out of her grasp in that moment, turning it on Damien.

Damien wrenched the pistol away from me, and Rude whirled, pointing the gun at Risa. She moaned and then leapt to her feet, snarling, quicker than I had thought her to be.

"Stop, or I'll shoot," Rude barked, his eyebrows pinched together above his sunglasses.

"Risa, don't!" Damien snapped, his voice cracking with strain. She froze.

There we were, locked in a stalemate, each a few feet from the other, pistols pointed. I was trying to think of a way out of this situation, but unless we could hold until the rest of my friends got there (_They had better be coming, or I'll kill them_, I was thinking), something bad was going to happen. And suddenly, I was very afraid for Rude—not even myself anymore, I just wanted him to get out safe and sound.

When I realized I could think of nothing to do, and panic was starting to set in big time, Risa made a move. She tried to lunge for the pistol Rude was holding, but Rude was quicker than that. He pulled the trigger as soon as she moved forward, but instead of a cry of pain from her, it was suddenly Damien West's eyes I was staring into as they widened in agony. His pistol clattered to the floor, loud in the sudden silence after the gun-shot, his hands, now free, clutching at his stomach, where a red stain was rapidly spreading across his white shirt.

"Damien!" Risa gasped as he fell to the ground. She dropped to her knees beside him, a sob bubbling forth from her lips, and I wasted no time as I sprang off Rude's back and snatched the discarded weapon off the floor.

Rude, with his gun still trained on Risa, reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, pressing a couple of buttons once he flipped it open. "Reeve," he said, short, clipped. "Send an ambulance to the movie theater."

The phone volume was loud enough that I could hear Reeve's reply. "_Right on it, Rude. Cloud and the others should be there very soon._"

Sure enough, I heard the clip-clopping of a group of feet charging down the hallway around the corner, and a familiar voice yelling, "Yuffie! Rude! Where are you guys?"

"Over here, Tifa!" I shouted back. They rounded the corner shortly afterward, and I blinked in surprise. Along with Cait Sith, Cloud, Tifa, and Barret, were Reno and Elena, dressed to the nines in their Turk uniforms.

"Rude, you _moron_!" Reno spat. "What were you _thinking_? You should've waited on us."

Rude shook his head. "Couldn't."

"And why not?"

Rude jerked his head toward me. "Yuffie needed help."

"Uh, excuse me," I said, my vision swimming. "Can this wait until later?"

"No, this _can't_ fuckin' wait till later. I—"

"I don'…feel s'good," I slurred as my eyes glazed over, and I passed out, skipping along into the merry land of Gumdrops and Twinkle-Toe Fairies.


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: _Hello again, everyone! I am really enjoying the feedback to this fic – in fact, the reviews I get for _The Strong, Silent Type_ are some of the most gratifying ones I have ever received. I really love hearing what you all think is funny specifically. Oftentimes, you surprise me with something that I hadn't thought was all that great._

_If you don't mind, continue telling me what you like. It's really nice to know if I hit the nail on the head. Thanks, readers! I hope you enjoy chapter seven._

-

The next time I cracked my eyes open, I realized that I felt very warm and nice and comfortable. Figuring that I must be in my bed and that it was time to get up and go bug Reeve for something to do, I stretched and rolled over, and then squawked like a Chocobo when I fell off the bed and onto the floor, hard.

I heard someone chuckle quietly, so I looked up.

Once my vision cleared a bit of the sparklies floating around in my eyes, I realized I was _not_ in my own room, that Rude was sitting in a chair nearby, and the reason I had fallen out of my bed was because it wasn't _my_ lovely full-sized pallet-bed at my home in Wutai—it was just a twin-sized.

"Where the heck am I?" I groaned.

"Oh, you're up," someone chirped, accompanying the sound of the door swinging open. It struck me then that I was in my room above Seventh Heaven.

"Unfortunately." My head was pounding.

I saw Tifa's feet walk into my peripheral vision, where my face was still smooshed up against the floor. I couldn't summon the energy or the caring to get up off the floor. I was too apathetic.

"Do you need some help, Yuffie?"

I shrugged listlessly, which was actually rather awkward from my strange, twisted position on the floor. "Sure."

I didn't hear anything for a moment, and then my world shifted on its access, going all topsy-turvy-zany and sort of whirling around as I felt myself flipped and turned right side up again. And I was against something rock hard and warm, and I realized Rude was lifting me gently, carefully off the ground, and before I could really enjoy it, he had laid me softly down on the bed, stepping back afterward.

"Er, thanks, Rude," I said, thanking Leviathan and Da Chao and all those lesser gods for blessing me with dark skin to hide my hot flush.

As everything that had happened started coming back to me, Tifa set a glass of water and four painkiller pills on my bedside table. "Those should do you some good, I imagine."

I sighed with relief, having already noted that my headache had crescendoed from a sort of friendly tapping inside my skull to more of a traditional Kalmish Clog Dance. Like the macho woman I am, I threw back all four pills at once and gulped down some water, sighing with relief as I felt them slide down my throat.

"So…how long was I out?" I asked, looking between the two of them.

Tifa shrugged lightly. "You've only been asleep for three hours at the most. You must be tired."

I barked a laugh. "Yeah, you got that right."

Tifa cocked her head at me. "What did they _do_ to you, Yuffie?"

I relaxed a bit into my nest of blankets and my pile of pillows. "Lots of shit. But before that—you gotta tell me what happened while I was stuck with those assholes."

Tifa sat down in a chair that had been brought in and placed next to Rude—_Why's he in my room?_—and placed her head on one of her hands, resting her elbow on her knee.

"Well," she said, a musing tone to her voice, "you see, we didn't know that Reeve had sent you on any specific mission, y'know? I mean, Reeve sends you on a lot of missions, so when he contacted us and told us something had gone wrong, we were surprised and pretty worried.

"He told us where you were and why you were there, but he also told us he wasn't sure what kind of firepower those guys had, so we needed to wait before we barged in there while some Cait Siths checked the place out.

"Now, I'm not too familiar with this part of the story, but apparently, when Reeve knew for sure that they had you there, in _that_ facility, he made some phone calls. And from what I know from Reeve—and Rude, stop me if I've got this wrong," she added, glancing at him, "Rude was in his office when he made the call. Before Reeve could stop him, he had left the office, and none of us had any idea what he was doing.

"Well, by the time I got Cloud, Barret, and a Cait Sith together, Reeve had gotten Reno and Elena to agree to help us, and when we arrived—well, Rude was already there, and Damien West was dead, and you know the rest, I guess." She smiled brightly at me, and my insides warmed at the familiar look.

"Er, wow, how long was I stuck in that place?" I asked.

"I'd say around five hours," she replied. "It took Reeve a while to realize something had gone wrong when you didn't report back, and then he had to see what we were up against."

I blinked. "Wait a minute, when did Barret get here?"

"Well, he was coming to visit yesterday, but you sort of got kidnapped before you could see him."

"Oh."

"But he decided to come along to help get you out of that mess, so that's good, at least."

"Uh-huh," I said, yawning widely. "Sorry, Tifa. 'M kinna tired."

She rose and patted me on the shoulder, then looked from me to Rude and smoothed my hair. "You go ahead and rest, 'kay? There'll be plenty of time to talk later."

"Okay," I said as she exited. Before I drifted off, I looked at Rude's impassive face and said, "Thanks again for saving my life, Rude-Man."

He nodded shortly, not moving from his spot. I fell asleep.

-

When I woke up, I was underneath my blankets, tucked in tightly and warmly, whereas before I had fallen asleep, I was just underneath them. The clock on my wall said it was three A.M., but I was fully awake, and there was no going back to sleep now. My head felt a lot better than it had last time I woke up (read: my brain not playing hopscotch in my skull), so I slipped out of the bed and padded my way down to the bathroom, 'cause I had the urgent and pressing need to pee.

When I flipped on the light switch and took care of business, I glanced in the mirror and gasped. I had forgotten until then what that biatch did to my face. Three long scratch-marks marred my skin, stretching from slightly over my right eye to my left cheekbone, traveling over the bridge of my nose in the process. They were healing rather well, and they weren't very deep, but I could tell they would scar, and I scowled mightily at myself in the mirror. I would have to see if I could get some scar-fading cream somewhere. I was too hawt for scars on my face.

Stretching, I decided that while I was up, I might as well get a shower, so I grabbed some towels and did just that, stepping out fifteen minutes later, squeaky clean. No, seriously, I squeaked. My feet were making some strange noises on the tiles—I used _that much_ soap.

I padded into my room and changed into clean pajamas there, but when I got back into bed, I found that I couldn't go back to sleep no matter how hard I tried. I think all the rest had really made my body awake. My brain was all, "Damn you, body, it's too early to be awake! You always have to do this, being all obstinate. Why can't you just listen to me?" And my body was like, "Uh, excuse me? I don't have to listen to you. You think I can't function on my own without you? You are expendable, missy."

What I mean to say is that I did a lot of tossing and turning, but no actual sleeping. So I did one of my favorite things—I went scuba diving! Ah, no, actually, I went to go sit on the roof. I liked to do it at night, when no one else was awake. There weren't really any stars to see or anything like that, but I got enough of stars in Wutai and on the road. I liked looking at all the city lights and listening to all the noises of concrete jungle.

On my way out the back door, I stopped. There were a few other rooms that Tifa used for various reasons—one of those reasons being for when all of AVALANCHE came to stay (I mean, that was rarely, but every once in a while we could drag Vincent's moldy ass over here, pry Reeve out of his desk chair with a crowbar, entice Nanaki with some smoked ham, get Barret to stop drilling oil and take a bath, and yank Cid away from Shera). There were a couple of extra guest rooms, which we usually shared when we needed lodging all at once, and I was occupying one of the two extra rooms upstairs. There were a few in the back, downstairs too, and until I walked by and heard soft snoring, I hadn't known any of them were being used.

Curious about the origins of the snoring, I tiptoed into the room from which the sound was drifting. It wasn't very loud, not really annoying, just a sort of raspy breathing sound. Thanks to the small nightlight plugged into the wall socket, casting a very dim, warm glow, I could see that there was someone in the bed. Squinting, letting my eyes adjust a little more, I crept closer.

I inhaled sharply when I saw that it was Rude, and he stirred slightly at my gasp. I had expected it to be Barret, but he was probably upstairs, down the hall from me, and besides, I had heard that man snore before. It sounded like a freight train doing a Kalmish clog dance with an adamantoise. This was much more…tolerable. I caught myself thinking that I would be able to sleep with this type of snoring and not be bothered by it.

My eyes plastered on Rude, utterly glued to him, I slowly started to back out of the room. He was just so fascinating to look at while asleep. I mean, he was always stoic, his face always smooth, but now, it was a different kind of smooth. Like…relaxed. While awake, he held this sort of calculated tension about him at all times, but, just like any other person, while asleep, he was at ease (not to mention his sunglasses weren't on his face).

It seemed like Rude was a bit more human to me every time I looked at him.

But I was invading his privacy, and for once, I didn't want to do that. Why? That is what you may be asking. Why would someone like The Great Ninja Yuffie abandon a great chance to snoop? Well, because I figured if Rude woke up while I was at it, he would not be pleased at all. And I was sure I couldn't outfight Rude, of all people. I mean, c'mon, his fists are the size of hams!

So instead of creeping around, I snuck out the door and went to the roof like I had intended to do in the first place. I got outside, hoisted myself up on the drainpipe, and scrambled up to the roof like a tree frog (Godo always did say I had _sticky_ fingers, nyuk, nyuk, okay, don't kill me, I couldn't resist).

I relaxed up on that roof, listening to the buzz of the ever-increasing traffic in the growing city of Edge, enjoying the artificial glow of the neon signs. I had always had this fascination with big cities, like Midgar and Junon, and not just because they were great places to steal. As much as I love Wutai, there's something that I love about industrialized places too. They each have their own appeal.

After about five minutes of this roof-sitting activity, I heard the creak of someone climbing up the drainpipe. Surprised, and ready to attack if it was someone hostile—though I doubted someone hostile would be that obvious about it—I looked down over the edge of the roof, just in time to bump skulls with whoever it was that was trying to join me on the roof.

"Ack!" I cried, clutching my forehead and falling back onto the rough, sandpapery tiles.

Someone grunted in response, and I felt the weight of the timbers shift as that person settled beside me. When I had stopped seeing double, and when my ears had stopped ringing, I discovered that it was Rude sitting next to me—clad, to my surprise and concealed delight, in flannel pajama pants and a plain white t-shirt.

"Er, hi, Rude," I said, eyes wide. "Wasn't expecting you up here."

Surprising me once again, he said, "How are you feeling?"

"F-fine," I stammered. "A little sore, and my wrists and my head hurt especially, but okay, otherwise."

"Your wrists?" he asked.

"Yeah, from the ropes. I had to do lotsa wiggling to get out of them before you came, and even though they weren't tight enough to keep me there, they were pretty damn tight all the same. They kinda chafed, see?"

I held up my damaged right wrist to him, showing off the bad rub-burns on them. They were starting to scab over, but they still stung if they brushed against anything. I could see the raw, shiny places where I had scraped skin off in my attempts to escape.

As I moved to lay my hand in my lap again, Rude reached out and gently took hold of my wrist, bringing it closer to his face for inspection. He turned my hand over in his, brushing his large, blunt fingers lightly across the lesions, making me wince a little. He frowned in acknowledgement of my sensitivity and looked up at me.

At that point, I noticed two things. One, Rude's crossed legs were brushing mine because we were sitting so close together. Two, Rude wasn't wearing any sunglasses, and his eyes were _glowing_.

"Rude," I said, amazed. "You have mako eyes."

Pfft, way to go, Captain Obvious. I'm sure he feels great about you announcing that.

He blinked, the nodded slightly, still holding onto my wrist.

"I guess that's why you wear sunglasses all the time, then?"

He nodded again.

"Yeah, public opinion of mako-enhanced people is really not at its highest, I daresay. I guess it's just more convenient if people don't bother you. Less skulls to crush, am I right?"

There was an awkward pause as I studied Rude's face without his glasses, his eyes open. They were brown, a deep, even, sensible brown, with a subtle sort of shine to them—the unnatural, mako luminescence that Cloud's or Reno's had, only less noticeable on Rude because of their brown hue. He had exactly the sort of eyes that I would expect him to have—reassuring and intelligent, quick to notice things.

I was amazed at how unguarded he seemed at this hour of night, as if taking off his sunglasses and having him in pajamas made some sort of transformation on his personality. Then I realized that he was still holding my wrist, and I looked down at his hand. Slowly, he set my hand back in my lap, and I was glad that the light from the streetlamps bleached the color out of me—I was blushing.

"Your face is scratched," he pointed out, staring at me intensely.

"Yeah," I said. "I think I'll see if I can go to the store tomorrow and buy some of that anti-scar cream—that stuff that fades marks. I don't mind a few scars—it's in the business, y'know—but I kind of like my face to be pretty still. I am _way_ too hot to let these scars mar my beautiful, awesome skin."

Rude was just looking at me, very focused, making me almost uncomfortable. I squirmed a bit, and his eyes darted around my body.

"How's your head?"

"Better, I guess. I've got a huge lump, though. It sucks. Kinda makes me dizzy and woozly. Jeez, Rude, you sure are talkative. Is it 'cause it's late? If I remove your sunglasses, is it like the magical thing that makes you speak? Are you, like, a superhero, and the sunglasses are your costume?"

He looked away from me then, smiling ever-so-slightly. I was a little relieved to be out from under his scrutiny, but at the same time, I was disappointed that he was no longer looking at me with his surprisingly nice eyes.

"Oh, oh! Lemme guess your superhero name, Rudey! Since your superpowers are obviously the Ultimate Powers of Not Talking and Making Everyone Feel Uncool With Your Sunglasses, your name is probably something like—hmm…"

He looked at me out of the sides of his eyes, an expression that was rather funny when he raised his eyebrows.

"I got it!" I said, snapping my fingers. "X-Ray." There was no response. "No?" He shook his head. "How about Lens-O? No, no, that's not it, either. You don't even have to say it—that's just not…'Rude' enough. Hmm…The Nightwalker? No, sounds too much like a vampire or something. Uh…The Shade? Haha, see what I did there?" He lifted one eyebrow at me incredulously, smirking. "Okay, not quite right. Oh, oh, I know, what about Glass-Eyes Guy! Okay, that's dumb," I said at his flat-out look of amusement.

I thought for a few more awkward moments. "Fine. This was my last resort, but it's all I got left."

He turned and looked at me expectantly. I paused dramatically, and with a flourish, I said, "Peewee."

Our eyes met, there was a split-second, teetering-on-the-brink-of-insanity pause, and then Rude started to chuckle. Soon, the chuckle was a full-blown laugh, straight from the gut, his shoulder shaking and his face contorted with mirth. I was shocked, and then I was laughing too, and we were falling back onto the roof with muffled thuds, laughing until tears were streaming down our faces.

I think we were a little bit crazy in that moment.

Looking back, I also think it was the very first step in the right direction for the two of us.


	9. Chapter 8

I healed up at Tifa's place for the next week or so, letting my head get back to normal, nabbing some scar cream to make sure the marks on my face weren't permanent. I could see that they were going to leave faint impressions, but they were getting better, and hopefully, with more time, they would be only barely noticeable.

Yeah, I'm vain. So what?

So, I had this thought that maybe Rude was just full of surprises because I didn't know him all that well, and I wasn't expecting him to do a lot of the things he did, but now that I've had the time to get to know him a little better and stuff, I realize that he's just full of surprises no matter how long you know him. Which leads me to my next bit in the story.

I wanted to know more about Rude, and I didn't want to snoop on him while he was there. I wanted to snoop on him while he was not there.

_But, but, Yuffie!_ I hear you saying. _Why? Are you not a most fantabulous ninja? Are you not the greatest thing to ever walk on two extremely sexy legs? You would be able to creep past that man even if his eyes were taped open and he was forced to watch your every move. You simply are that great a ninja!_

Well, I'm flattered you think that, of course, but you are wrong. Rude is alert. Rude is a Turk. Rude is mako-enhanced. And most of all, Rude is fuckin' huge. I mean, jeez, you've seen the guy, people, and even if you haven't seen the guy, you've gathered from my descriptions that the guy could hoist me up and snap me over one knee if he wanted. Which, hopefully he doesn't. His freakin' hands are the size of trash can lids.

Okay, well, maybe not that big. Maybe more like…the size of adamantai. Yeah.

So it was time for me to try to stake out Rude's apartment. Or house. Or box. Ah, crap, wherever he lived. I didn't even know at that point. So, revising the plan, I decided it was time to figure out where Rude lived and _then_ try to stake out his house.

How was I going to find out where he lived, you ask? Why, by being totally subtle and surreptitious, of course!

-

"Yuffie," Reeve said flatly, "I will say this one more time. I am _not_ going to give you Rude's address."

"_Pleeeeeeeease_," I wheedled, clasping my hands together and putting on a sort of c'mon-gimme-a-hand-I-was-born-an-orphan-and-I-have-a-terminal-blood-disease-and-I-like-puppies face.

His eyes narrowed. "Don't you poke your lip out at me, missy. You know that has no effect on me."

"But, _Reeve_," I whined. "I need to _know_!"

"Why?"

"Because I need to, er, talk to him, of course," I chirped, smiling artificially.

"Sure you do, Yuffie."

There was a pause as I grinned at him as hard as I could, attempting to be charming and coercive. He sighed and shook his head at me.

"Yuffie, go back to Tifa's. You still have some healing to do, and I don't want you back in here until you're in peak condition, you hear? I want you to be well soon so we can get back to work."

"But, Reeve, I need to talk to him!"

"Talk to who, sugar?"

I whirled. Reno was standing in the doorway, adjusting his goggles and grinning at me, and Rude was behind him, arms crossed.

Reeve blinked, and a slightly devious glint flashed through his eyes. "Oh, Reno, Rude, excellent. Yuffie was just looking for a way to contact Rude. She wants to talk to him."

Rude looked at me as if to say, _What do you need?_

"Well, we don't have all day, Princess. Whaddaya gotta say?" Reno asked, impatient.

"Uh, er, hmm…I forgot!" I squeaked, and squeezed past the two of them, into the hallway, and out of sight.

_Damn_, I thought. _I'll just have to go with Plan B._

_Wait. What's Plan B? Ah, fuck it._

-

I was waiting in the shadows, silent, stealthy, as invisible as air, lighter than a feather in the wind. I am the Great Ninja Yuffie, and I was on a stake out.

I was still on leave for the benefits of my health at that point, and a few days had passed since my discussion (read: whining session) with Reeve. So I had enacted Plan B (after figuring out what the hell Plan B was)!

What is Plan B, you ask? Why, I was disguised as a bum in an alley a little way down the street from the WRO Tower. I was in a greasy, patchy overcoat, fingerless gloves, nasty, oil-covered jeans, with a skullcap and lots of dirt on my face to disguise me. I think I looked rather awesome, and the added touch of coffee grounds glued to my face (for stubble, yeah?) was what made the ensemble. I was totally The Best Bum Ever.

Wait, maybe I shouldn't say that so proudly. Er…right. Anyway.

So, from where I was sitting, I could see the front doors to the WRO Tower, and I knew that Rude usually exited from there. It was really just a matter of waiting for him to go home, and he had actually entered the building about an hour ago. I wasn't sure what he was doing, but since most of his work was performed on outside missions, I figured he'd be leaving soon. Plus, it was a Tuesday evening, and as far as I knew, Reeve didn't have anything special going on. Really, this all depended on whether or not Rufus was going to work him.

However, for once, Lady Luck smiled down upon me and said, "Yuffie, just for tonight, I think I won't be a bitch to you. Have a reprieve, you little rascal."

When Rude walked out of the building, I waited until he had rounded a corner of the block and then vanished into the shadows of the alley, shedding my bum clothes as I went. I didn't need them, seeing as I had fished them out of thrift stores around the city, so I figured I'd just leave them for some less fortunate soul to find. The gloves and coat were worn, but nice all the same.

I got to a fire escape ladder and quickly scaled it, getting to the roof of the building. And just for this occasion, I had worn very sturdy boots, because I knew in advance that I would be building-hopping. Getting a running start in the direction Rude had gone, I gathered momentum and leaped, crossing the five feet between the buildings effortlessly. My feet landed with a soft, barely audible sound on the concrete. I do so love my boots, yesyes.

Each time I caught up to Rude, I would crouch down on top of the roof I was occupying at that moment, and I would wait for him to get far enough ahead that when I made a running jump, he would not see or hear me. This went on for a good fifteen minutes, and my legs were not even tired. I was beginning to think maybe I was born as a sneaky step in a previous life.

Luckily for me, even though the buildings varied in height, they remained tall enough that I still had a sight advantage on Rude. Finally, after it seemed like he had turned a zillion corners and walked a zillion miles (really, I think it was just me being impatient to snoop), he arrived at a tall building, what I assumed was a set of apartments, the stacky-kind that are built one on top of the other, and they all have neat little balconies that look really dangerous.

I waited until Rude had entered the breezeway before I scrambled down the nearest fire escape and sprinted oh-so-lightfootedly after him. I located a drainage gutter bolted to the side of the building and scampered up to the apartment roofs, willing to follow him from an elevated position. And as long as I was careful, he wouldn't notice me.

I skittered over the shingles and stuff, making running leaps from building to building as I went along. They were set fairly close together, as almost every edifice in Edge is, so I had no trouble with the travel. Rude did not take more than five minutes to get to his apartment amongst the clusters, and to my delight, he was living on the third floor, the highest one. More of a challenge for me.

After he was inside, I crept close enough to memorize what his apartment number was, and then I skipped along merrily back to Seventh Heaven, where I was planning on calling it a day. The sky was starting to darken, and I needed to wait until Rude was out of the house again. The next day was Wednesday, a perfect day for another stake-out.

-

"Yuffie, where are you going?"

I froze. "Uh…"

Tifa crossed her arms and tapped her foot, a sure sign that she was onto me. "Look, I know you've been sneaking out lately, and you're _supposed_ to be in bed, healing up some more before you go anywhere. What are you doing?"

I darted my eyes around, searching my head for a fib.

"Uh…I'm going…to…do…paperwork."

"Paperwork."

"Yes."

"Yuffie, you don't even do paperwork when you're well."

"Yes. Exactly. Which is why I'm doing it now, while I have nothing better to do."

Tifa raised a delicate eyebrow. "Mmhmm, yes, which is why you are sneaking out to do it. And I'm sure you're wearing light, flexible clothing because you're going to do paperwork. Do you need those binoculars and all those tools to do paperwork? I'm just curious."

My mouth worked, eyes narrowed, trying to figure out what to say to her. "Uh…"

She sighed. "Yuffie, I just don't want you to hurt yourself while you're spying on Rude."

I stammered, "Wh-what makes you think it's Rude I'm spying on? _I mean_, I'm not spying on anyone! Who said I was spying on anyone, much less _Rude_ of all people! Sheesh, Tifa."

"Oh, _honestly_," she said, rolling her eyes at me, though I could sense she was more amused than anything else. "You really think I wouldn't notice? He broke into a known crime-lord's—"

"Suspected, not _known_," I interjected.

"Whatever," she said, waving a dismissive hand. "The fact is, he broke in single-handedly to that guy's hideout and carried you out with his bare hands, pretty much."

"So? He was just doing what he felt was right," I protested.

"_And_ he stayed the night to make sure you were all right, and I know for a fact that he has an apartment in the city, and _then_—"

"Okay, okay!" I said, flinging my hands into the air. "So I'm going to break into Rude's house to find out more about him, and _maybe_ we're friends or something. What's the big deal?"

"Well, first of all, you're breaking and entering, which is kind of against the law, but whatever, I guess I can't stop you from doing that. Not to mention that that's a little weird, Yuffie. Is that the way you show affection?"

I blushed. "I'm not showing affection. I have no affection for Rude. I just want to see if he wears boxers or briefs."

"Mmhmm, sure. Anyway, just don't hurt yourself. Tell me when he asks you on a date, okay? I want to know all the details."

"Ti-_faaaa_," I whined.

"See you later, Yuffie," she said, exiting the room and leaving me to my own devices.

-

And devices I had, oh, yes. And by devices, I mean binoculars. And a set of lock picks, which I was very well-acquainted with using. Oh, I do love my lock picks. I gave them all names a long time ago, when I figured that we were going to be together for a good, long while. Their names are Shiva, Hades, Leviathan, Odin, and the best lock pick of all, the one that worked on almost everything, was called Bahamut Zero. Altogether, they made the Knights of the Round. Oh, yeah, baby.

I was positioned on the roof again, the same one from which I had watched Rude exit his house the previous day. Now I was just waiting for him to leave again, and I knew he would because it was a Wednesday, and it was hump day, and Reeve was always happiest on the hump of the week, so he always assigned us extra work, that sadistic bastard. All I needed was for Rude to go to work, and I would be all set.

When I got there, it was seven in the morning, and I only had to wait about twenty minutes for Rude to step out, lock the door behind him and depart. Oh, yeah, Yuffie Kisaragi was _on the job_, baby!

Once I had skulked my way up to the door, it didn't take me long to slip out Bahamut Zero and jimmy the simple doorknob lock on the apartment door, and I was in.

Rude's living room, which I stepped into first, was surprisingly…Rude-like. It wasn't overly decorated, but it wasn't too Spartan either. He had couches in nice, relaxing, forest green tones, with a simple, dirt-hiding carpet pattern to match those. There were a few framed pictures of Rude and the other Turks here and there, some cheap-looking paintings, and an entertainment system. _Oh, wow, Rude has a big-screen TV. What a lucky bastard!_

I traveled from there into the dining room and kitchen, located to the left. They were boring, though. Just a table, some chairs, and some food. I exited the kitchen and went down the hallway, which was set between the dining room and the living room. In this hall there was a linen closet with some red and white, fluffy towels—_Oooh, I bet Rude looks nice in those towels. No, bad, Yuffie! Bad! _There was a master bathroom with a big, sunken tub in the floor, and then, there was the only bedroom, the master bedroom.

_Hmm, I bet I know why they call it the master bedroom if Rude sleeps in it—d'oh! No. No. Will not go there._

Rude's bedroom was furnished with a bookcase filled to the brim with different tomes, some stylishly drawn maps on the walls, a chest of drawers, and a large, queen-sized bed. There was another door in the wall that I assumed led to a closet.

All in all, it was small, but actually sort of nice. I knew Rude wasn't filthy stinking rich or anything, but at the same time, I also knew that the WRO pays its valuable employees sufficiently for a comfortable lifestyle.

_Now_, I thought, rubbing my hands together eagerly. _Let's see what he's got in his drawers. _

I snickered to myself as I started rooting through his underwear, answering the niggling question in my mind. Rude wore neither boxers nor briefs—he wore boxer-briefs! Interesting. Maybe I could ask him why he chose that particular kind. I could just imagine how awkward that conversation would be.

_"Hey, Rude, how come you wear boxer-briefs?"_

_"Less swinging around."_

_"…Oh."_

_"…"_

On second thought, maybe I would just be content with the knowledge of what kind of underwear he wore, and I would leave the hows and whys alone.

So after finding nothing else of interest in Rude's dresser, I decided I would sneak into his closet. Unfortunately for me, that darn closet was my undoing. Why, you ask? Well, I was too busy looking through Rude's clothes and pairs of shoes and little, neatly-labeled storage tubs that I didn't even hear him approach. And by him, I mean Rude. Oh, yeah, you're damn right I was in deep shit.

Five minutes into my perusal of Rude's personal items, I heard a very significant clearing of someone's throat from behind me.

"Eep!" I squeaked, dropping the stylish hat I was holding (Rude had rather good taste in clothing, I had discovered). I whirled on one heel and saw Rude standing in the doorway to the closet, one eyebrow lifted over his sunglasses, arms crossed.

"Uh, it's not what it looks like!" I gasped. He tilted his head at me, and I deflated. "Okay, it's totally what it looks like. I'm rooting through your stuff."

"Why?" he asked, scratching the back of his head.

I shrugged. "I dunno. I guess it was just 'cause I wanted to know what you were like."

"Could've just asked," he said simply.

This thought, for some reason, had not occurred to me. I am Yuffie Kisaragi, people! All I know is thievery and breaking and entering! Rude was presenting an entirely new concept to me at that point in time.

"Oh," I said intelligently.

There was silence as he stared, one eyebrow still arched, looking around at his closet and then at me.

"Rude, uh, could you take the sunglasses off? I can't ever tell what you're thinking when you wear those. It sort of makes me uncomfortable."

He stood there for a moment, staring (I assumed) at me, hard, and then he took them off and gestured for me to vacate his closet. I complied, following him as he went into the living room and sat down on a couch, his faintly luminescent brown eyes tracking my movements. I sat on the edge of a squashy armchair and fidgeted under his gaze.

"So…" I said. "I'm, er, I'm really sorry I broke into your house."

He gave me a look. His face didn't change much, but I just knew from some subtle shifting of his expressions and a gleam in his eye that he was giving me a _look_.

"Okay, so I'm not really sorry I broke in, but I _am_ really sorry that I invaded your privacy 'cause you're mad now." He shook his head. "Wait…you're not mad?" He smiled just slightly. "Why not?"

He shrugged. "Tifa told me."

"What? When?"

"While you were asleep, recovering."

"How the _heck_ did she know that far in advance?"

He held up his hands as if to say, _I dunno_.

"Well, what'd she say?"

"She said, 'After this, Yuffie might break into your house.'"

I was dumbfounded. "B-but…how...what…"

"Said you would be curious about me."

"Oh."

"Said it was your way of showing affection."

I chewed the inside of my cheek. "So you forgive me then?"

He nodded. "Wasn't mad anyway."

"Wait, why are you even back here?"

"Forgot my I.D. card."

"Well, that's good then!" I said, overly cheerful, hopping up from his really comfortable recliner. "I guess I'll be seeing you, Rude."

As I walked to the front door, he stood rapidly, reaching out and grabbing my wrist. I stopped dead in my tracks, and his eyes met mine. He released me as if burned, opening his mouth as if to say something, but when no words were forthcoming, I gave him a quivering smile and fled.

I wondered what he had wanted to say. I could still feel the imprint of his huge, warm hand on my wrist.


	10. Chapter 9

A few days later, I was allowed to go back to work, and I was actually looking forward to it, surprisingly. Being out for health leave bored me out of my freaking mind. Maybe a little sojourn from the WRO had been just what I needed! I was surely going to have a wonderful Monday!

Six hours into doing the gigantic overload of paperwork that had been left on my desk in my absence, I was thinking, _DEAR, SWEET LEVIATHAN, GET ME OUT OF HERE_, as I stared at the clock and willed it to be five p.m.

Finally, it was, and I could swear that Da Chao was just making the hands tick slower today to play tricks on me, the mean bastard. But never mind all that! I was free, I was saved, I could go back to Seventh Heaven and have a stiff drink and try not to think about all the paperwork I was going to have to do the next day as well! Ah, fuck it all.

Before I could make it completely out of the building, someone came from behind and snagged my elbow. I whirled and snarled, preparing to bite some poor lackey's head off, but then I realized I was staring at the zipper on someone's blue Turk suit. There could only be one guy that big that would ever dare to touch me, so I relaxed.

"Oh. Rude, it's just you."

He looked down at me from behind his sunglasses and grunted. "Hn."

"What do you need, big man?" I asked, stepping back from him so I wasn't craning my head to look him in the face.

He shrugged, and I gave him a strange look. "You've been acting kinda weird lately, bud. Sure there's not something going on with you?"

He shrugged again, his face inscrutable behind his stoicism and his sunglasses. "Okay, well, if you ever need to talk," I said, "just let me know." Then I turned to leave.

To my surprise, he followed me as I walked out the door, and instead of letting me go the direction I wanted to go—namely home to Seventh Heaven so I could bitch to Tifa about my day and admire Marlene's new crayon creations of her and me fighting Marlboros back-to-back (I couldn't actually tell that's what they were supposed to be, she just liked to tell me that's what they were)—he took me by the elbow again and lightly steered me in the opposite direction.

"Uh, Rude, what are you doing? I want to go _home_. Home is Seventh Heaven right now. It is in the _opposite direction_ from the way we are going. Namely, the other way. Which means we are not going to Seventh Heaven. Which means I will not get to relax. Rude, seriously, what are you doing?" I was babbling, but I was also tired, and I was distracted by his gloved hand still on my elbow.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see," he murmured.

I sighed with exasperation.

Only about five minutes went past, and then Rude was leading me into a tiny, hole-in-the-wall café. I blinked as he made a beeline for a secluded, candlelit corner in the intimate establishment. He made a motion for me to sit, and I did so, watching with curiosity as he slid into the seat across from me in the booth.

I cocked my head to the side. "Rude, what are you doing?"

He coughed into his hand. That was when it hit me.

"Rude," I deadpanned, "why are we here?"

He just looked at me impassively from behind his sunglasses.

I sighed, exasperated. "Rude, while we're here, can you at least take your sunglasses off? I can't talk to you when I can't see your eyes. It's like having a conversation with a brick wall."

He hesitated and looked around.

"Look, if anyone says anything about your awesome eyes, I will kick him or her or it in his or her or its face. No one's going to say anything to you—especially not with Yuffie Kisaragi in your company."

He frowned at me.

"Okay, and there _is_ the fact that your hands are the size of trash can lids. But seriously, Rude, no one will bother you. I promise."

He deliberated for a moment and then took them off, slipping them into a pocket inside his blue suit jacket. I relaxed at being able to see all of his face with no barriers, and I felt like we were on more equal ground.

"So," I prodded, "you didn't answer my question."

He shrugged. "Thought you might be hungry."

My eyes narrowed. I was sure there was more to it than that, but I would figure it out later. Right now, I realized, I actually did want something to eat, so I started to peruse the menu.

I ordered a traditional Kalmish dish (I had always found the food there interesting) and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The rest of the evening consisted of me blathering at Rude and getting the occasional amused expression or raised eyebrow or short response when I directly asked him a question. I told him about my long day at the office in the Pyramids of Paperwork, admired the warm glow of his eyes in the dim lighting of the cafe, and just generally enjoyed his company.

It was weird, enjoying Rude's company like this. I always thought I would need someone to talk and talk and talk like I do to be able to relate to them and have a good time, but I found that the occasional lapses in conversation and the silences filled with chewing and inscrutable glances were actually rather…comfortable. This was a whole new experience for me.

After we had finished our meals, Rude escorted me home, walking me to the door of Seventh Heaven and waited until I got inside before departing.

Slow as I was, I continued to wonder, _What was all that about?_

-

Luckily, I had Tifa to tell me, "Duh, Yuffie."

"What? Why 'duh'? What did I miss? Am I completely oblivious?"

"Yes."

Two days later, I was sitting in the bar with Tifa. It was Sunday night, and the place was like a ghost town.

I leveled my most murderous look at Tifa. She actually backed away a couple of steps, hands raised. "Whoa, whoa, whoaaaa. Calm down. I'm just joking, though you are a bit dense if you don't understand."

"What am I missing?"

"Rude took you on a date, Yuffie."

I blinked. "Oh."

"How could you not tell?"

"Uh, I dunno, I've never really…been…on a date."

Tifa stared at me, one eyebrow slowly, ever so slowly rising to altitudes that I did not know could be achieved by normal humans.

"_What_?"

"I just…you've never been on a date? Yuffie, you're twenty-one years old. I mean, what happened?"

I avoided her eyes, watching her hands restlessly cleaning glasses with a rag that looked sort of too dirty to clean bar glasses. "Cloud. Vincent."

Tifa's hands stopped moving. I looked up at her face, seeing the pitying expression there. I scowled at her. "Do _not_ pity me. Okay? It's my own fault for being stupid."

She chewed her lip ponderously. "Well, okay, the Cloud thing, yeah. Maybe. That was a little dumb. Especially with Aerith around. But I can understand that. I've been there and done that, obviously." My eyes darted to the shiny engagement ring on her left hand. She smiled at me. "But Vincent led you on, and I will never forgive him for hurting you like he did."

"Oh, c'mon, Teef. Sure, I had a thing for him, but he didn't hurt me _that_ badly."

Her wine-colored eyes speared me. "You can't lie to me, Yuffie Kisaragi. I saw you after he rejected you."

I blew my bangs out of my face, toying with the hem of my shorts, suddenly self-conscious. That stupid subject still made me burn with shame and regret and anger and hurt feelings, and it had been four months already. Four months was ample time to get over stuff, but that didn't mean it still didn't make me hurt when I saw him.

"He didn't really reject me, per se."

"You _still_ have not told me what happened. Are we ever going to be able to talk about it, Yuffie?"

"Basically, Tifa, he acted like himself. Part of me hates him for it, but since that was why I fell for him in the first place, I almost can't blame him."

"Acted like himself?"

"He just told me that I was too good for him and that he couldn't let himself taint my purity and blah blah lookit me I am an emotional, sensual idiot. Oh, the pain! Oh, the sorrow!" I fell back against the bar, my hand on my forehead femininely.

Tifa's mouth tugged down at the corners. "Why, that _bastard_."

"Calm down, Tifa," I said. "This is pretty much why I never bothered to tell anyone. It's all just so stupid."

"Gods, Yuffie, I'm sorry. You seem all right now, at least."

"Yeah—truth is, Vincent really hurt me—"

"Oh, hey, Rude," Tifa said, eyes suddenly wide, "I didn't even notice you come in."  
I whipped around so fast I was surprised my head didn't fly off. What a fine mess that would've been too. I can just imagine the conversation between me and The Bald, Mute Wonder.

_"Oh, sorry, Rude. It seems my head is lying on your shoe."_

_"Hn."_

_"I promise I'll polish them off, really."  
_

_"You'd better."_

Perfect.

Rude had come in through the back hall, so it was no wonder Tifa and I hadn't noticed his entrance. The front doors had little tinkling bells on them to alert us when a customer entered. He had apparently grown used to coming in that way from when he was visiting me in my sickbed.

"How long—" My voice cracked, so I stopped and cleared my throat, wincing. "How long have you been standing there, Rude?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. I narrowed my eyes at him, feeling like he was being just a little _too_ smooth about things.

"Long enough, eh?" I said quietly.

He hesitated.

"It's okay, Rude. Just…forget about it."

"What did you need?" Tifa chirped brightly, setting down the mug in her hand with an overly loud _crack_.

He cleared his throat. "Came to see Yuffie," he said, nodding in my direction.

I saw a curious glint flash through Tifa's eyes. Not just any glint either. Oh, no. I had seen that look before. Several different times, actually. When Cloud asked her what she wanted for her birthday. When Cid hesitated about proposing to Shera. When Reeve expressed interest in Elena. Why were my palms suddenly sweating?

"Oh?" she said. "What for?"

He started brushing lint off his clothes. Too bad I didn't see any lint. Maybe he was being overtaken by little lint aliens that only guys with bald heads and sunglasses could see.

"Are you free?" he asked me.

I checked my watch. The time was seven p.m. "Uh, yeah," I said, surprised. "Why?"

A smile broke across Tifa's face, that scary glint still in her eyes. "Go ahead and ask her, Rude. Be a man."  
His head turned toward her, and his eyebrow lifted incredulously.

"Wow, Rude, she just challenged your masculinity," I said, as seriously as I possibly could. "Are you going to let her do that?"

He cleared his throat, coughing into his gloved hand. "Yuffie, wanna go out?"

"Go out?" I put on my best stupid look, my eyes wide and glassy and my face blank. I was enjoying this way too much. "What do you mean?"

He frowned at me as if knowing what I was up to. Hell, he probably actually did know what I was up to.

"To dinner."

"Oh, sure, with who?"

Tifa broke into a fit of coughing that sounded suspiciously like laughter. "If you two will excuse me," she said, winking at me.

Once she was gone, Rude visibly relaxed, his shoulders slumping just a bit, his spine shifting just that much.

I wondered at when I had learned to read him so well. "Wanna go out to dinner with me?"

"Of course," I said.

And so we did.

-

"So," Tifa said one night over dinner in the dining room in the back of the building, "has he kissed you yet?"

I spewed my water all over Cloud, who glared at me so hard, I could swear one of my kidneys stopped functioning. Marlene and Denzel giggled, watching the scene play out and masking their attention with the potatoes they were eating.

"Why, Tifa," I said. "I have no idea what you might mean."

"Yuffie," she said, exasperated, waving her fork dangerously close to Cloud's ear, "you don't mean to tell me that he hasn't even kissed you good night yet, do you?"

I sighed. "Nope, not even so much as a squeeze on the hand. He's just so…private."

Cloud cleared his throat. "Uh, could somebody tell me what's going on?" he asked. "I mean, you guys seem to be intent on endangering my life with this subject, so…" He dodged Tifa's incoming hand.

"Nope," I said, at the same time Tifa said, "Rude's been taking Yuffie on dates."

This time it was Cloud's turn to spit all over me. Marlene giggled again. "Hey!" I said. "You did that on _purpose_, you ass." I glanced at Marlene and Denzel. "I mean, uh. Butt. You butt."

Wiping the mouth with the back of his hand, he exclaimed, "Rude!"

"You're damn right it was rude, you dumbass. Now apologize for ruining my beauty with your cooties."

"No, I mean, Rude? When did this happen?"

Tifa hummed thoughtfully. "Hasn't it been about a month now that he's been taking you places, Yuffie?"

I nodded. "Yep."

"No, seriously, what? Rude? _How did this happen_?"

"Don't be so astounded, Cloud," Tifa reprimanded, waving her fork in his face, dangerously close to clipping his nose. "Yuffie is perfectly capable of getting a boyfriend, y'know."

He held up his hands quickly. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I never said she couldn't. But _how_?"

"This roast is awesome, Tifa," I said. "I never stop being amazed at your cooking, y'know."

Tifa blushed becomingly. "Aw, thanks, Yuffie."

Cloud deflated in his chair, muttering into his potatoes. I suppressed a grin.

-

"Tifa, I don't think he's interested in me," I said morosely, nursing a drink.

"Sure he is!" she encouraged. "It's just, well, Yuffie…I think Rude moves at his own pace. Even if you did make the first move, it's not likely that he's going to respond well until he's good and ready."

"You think so?"

"Just you wait, he'll act when the time feels right for him. I bet it's not you at all—he's just Rude. His way is the best way for him. Be patient."

"Okay," I sighed. "If you say so."

She gave me a cheery wink, that glint back in her eye.

"Tifa, you're in that scary place again, aren't you?"

"No idea what you're talking about."

I stared hard at her, then decided it was better to just wait and see what she was going to do.


	11. Chapter 10

A week later, Rude showed up in my office dressed in nice slacks and a button-down white shirt that accentuated his tan in just the right delicious way.

_Down, girl,_ I thought as I felt my mouth begin to water just looking at him.

"Done working yet?" he asked, his hands in his pockets.

I stared at the paperwork I hadn't finished, glanced at him looking absolutely ravishing, looked back at the stacks of paper looming over me, and then with a triumphant whoop, knocked the whole stack off my desk, throwing it around like confetti as I cartwheeled over to him.

He snorted, "Gonna have to pick that up tomorrow."

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Obvious. Where we headed?"

He made a _follow me_ gesture, and I scampered along after him.

"I hope I don't have to look as nice as you, 'cause I look like crap."

He shook his head, so I shrugged and followed him, griping about paperwork the whole way. Where did we go, you ask? Why, to a topless bar, of course! And Rude sat there and looked awkward while I cheered and put money in the strippers' bikinis, and we had a jolly good time.

No, really, he took me to a casual-nice restaurant with a pleasant atmosphere and a candlelit interior. The waiter seated us, and we began looking at our menus. This 'taking-Yuffie-to-dinner' thing had become semi-regular. Rude picked me up from work or Seventh Heaven a couple of times a week, we went to a restaurant, and then he would walk me home afterwards.

While we waited for our food, I sweated nervously. I had felt this way for weeks now, every time we went out somewhere. To be honest, I don't know really when it started, but I was afraid that Rude didn't like me, as, well…more than a friend. I didn't want him to pull a Vincent on me or anything. _"My sunglasses are too dark for your pure, bright eyes. I cannot afford to taint you with my lack of hair and my dark lenses. We must remain friends."_

Yeah, as if Rude would ever say that many words in one day. Pfft.

As I fidgeted, Rude took his glasses off and slipped them into a pocket. He had come into the habit of taking them off every time we were together so that I could look him in the eye. He did it as a favor to me so I could feel like we were on equal ground.

My mouth clamped tight, I fisted one hand in the tablecloth, studying the slightly tacky, plaid pattern. The colors reminded me of Cait Sith. Ick.

After a few minutes of tense silence, Rude finally spoke, his husky, baritone voice sending shivers down my spine as he said my name. "Yuffie."

I jumped. "Rude! Sheesh, don't scare me like that, you sneaky step, you."

"What's wrong?" he asked, looking me in the eye with his slightly luminescent peepers.

"Wow, you've sure got some pretty eyes, Rudey. Has anyone ever told you that you have—"

"Ahem." He cleared his throat at me, interrupting my diversionary tactics of rambling. Damn, he was onto my games.

"Uhm, well, you see," I stammered, twisting my fist into the tablecloth, making the plates shift around as I did so, "it's just, well, you've been taking me out so often, and you haven't ever said anything that indicates that these are, well, uh…dates." I rushed on as he opened his mouth, wanting to finish my piece before I could let the humiliation take over. "And, uh, you haven't hugged me or done anything to maybe show that you like me as, y'know, _more than a friend_, nudge nudge wink wink. Not to say that you have to!" I said as fast as I could, raising a hand to stop the protests I knew were coming from him as his mouth opened again.

"It's just, well, Tifa says that you're taking me on dates and that you move at your own pace and oh holy Da Chao's two hundred eyeballs, I wasn't going to say all that, ugh shutupshutupshutup, self."

I let my head fall to the table with a _thunk_, shielding myself with my arms.

There was a silent pause, and I knew I had blown it. _Shit, now he'll never want to see me again. I've gone and made it all dumb. Why can't I ever do things right?_

"Okay, well, I guess I should probably go," I said from underneath my sheltering arms. "So if you'll just excuse me." I lifted my head and looked at Rude, whose gaze stopped me dead in my tracks.

Slowly but deliberately, he reached across the table. Where I was once again abusing the table cloth, he laid his hand firmly over mine, curling his fingers around my fist.

Stunned, I stared at him, mouth hanging open. The corner of his lips quirked up, and he insinuated his fingers between mine, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.

"Oh," I squeaked.

He stroked the back of my hand with his warm, calloused thumb, and he held my hand later that night, when he walked me home.

I couldn't sleep for thinking about it, repeatedly replaying the safe feeling of his powerful hands cradling mine so gently.

-

The night Reno approached me, it was a busy night in the bar, so I didn't immediately notice him as he slid onto the bar stool next to mine and waited for Tifa to come over and order a drink.

"So, Princess," he drawled, dangerously close to my ear, his breath warm. I controlled myself just in time to conceal my surprise, glancing at him coolly out of the side of my eyes.

"Hey, Reno, what's going on?"

_I have a feeling I know what he wants, and it is definitely not to ask me who my hairdresser is._

He held up a finger as he grabbed his drink—Tifa knew his regular favorite—and tipped the shot back. When he had wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sighed with relief, he said, "So I heard you and my partner are gettin' cozy."

I blinked, eyes wide and innocent. "I would never touch Rufus, Reno! He just invited me over to watch a movie, I swear nothing happened."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "Not my _partner_, stupid. My partner."

"Oh, eh heh, you mean Rude Man," I said. "Define 'cozy.'"

"I heard you held his hand, Princess," he said, waggling his eyebrows at me.

I snorted. "Yep, that's about it. _Real_ cozy."

"Hey, hey now, girly," he said, shaking a finger in my face reproachfully, "that's a big step for Rude. He hasn't had many girlfriends since—well, he hasn't had many girlfriends."

I leaned into his face. "What was that last part?"

"He hasn't had many girlfriends." When I continued to stare at him, he said, "What?"

"Since what? He hasn't had many girlfriends since…what?"

He shook his head and held up his hands. "No, no, I will not go into this. Just somethin' you're gonna have to find out from Rude—when he's ready to tell you, of course. If you two get to that point."

I sighed. I hated to wait for things. Which is primarily the reason I took up stealing. Well, that and running around in the forests on the continents—you got tired of eating raw frogs after a while, especially when some of them weren't as dead as you thought and would wake up right as you were taking a bite out of their legs and cast "frog" on you, and then…yeah. It's just not cool to eat what you've been once. Nope.

"Okay, fine."

He blinked, surprise in his electric blue eyes. "I'm shocked, Princess. Normally you'd knock me off my stool and interrogate me 'till I told. Maybe Rude's doing you some good."

"Hm," I mused. "Maybe he is."

"Anyway, what I was gonna tell you was this," he said, guzzling another shot. "If you hurt Rude, babe, we're gonna make sure you hurt too."

My mouth dropped open. "Excuse me?" I mean, wasn't it the man-friends who usually made those threats for their gal-friends? This was so backwards and moronic.

"You heard me," he said. "We Turks aren't usually close, but when you've been through as much shit as me, Elena, Rude, and Tseng, you develop some bonds and all that crap. Got that, pumpkin? I like you, so don't make me have to hurt you later. You do right by my pal."

With that, he patted me on the shoulder firmly, downed the last of his liquor and strolled nonchalantly out the door, as if he hadn't just threatened me with bodily harm and stuck his nose in where it didn't belong.

It struck me then that I was really, really angry.

-

"So, Rude, mind telling me why your partner took it upon himself to threaten me for your sake?"

Rude was so startled by this question, his brow actually furrowed, and he said, "What?"

He was walking me home from another dinner, his hand cradling mine between us. I was tense—I had been wanting to ask this question the whole time we were on our date, but there just hadn't been a good time for it until then. As it was, it felt like I would not have been able to cut the tension with my Conformer. Okay, actually, my Conformer is way awesome so—wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right.

"Reno came into the bar yesterday to tell me that if I hurt you, the Turks would hurt me."

Rude's eyes fluttered in confusion. He seemed—for Rude—flabbergasted. He made a little noise in his throat.

"I _really_ hope that you had nothing to do with that, 'cause if you did, I'm just going to have to claim that you have _no_ balls. At all."

He scowled then, and I thought he was mad at me until he spoke. "Gonna kill that idiot."

"Yeah, I figured you didn't send him. Considering the size of you, I'd say your balls dropped a long time ago." Silence. "Oh, fuck, did I say that out loud? Wasn't as funny as it was in my head."

There was a slight pink tinge to Rude's cheeks, and he snorted. "Reno's stupid."

"I guess I understand," I conceded, "seeing as he's your friend and all. But he needs to mind his own damn business or I'll see to it that he can't ever top Rufus again."

Rude winced.

"I know, right? The thought of them together is a little nauseating."

He shook his head,

"Oh, you mean the implications of me neutering him."

He winced again, shooting me a pleading look.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop talking about neutering."

He sighed in relief. I snickered.

"But seriously, Rude, he said you haven't had many girlfriends since—and then he stopped. He said, 'Rude hasn't had many girlfriends since…' What does that mean?"

The air was tense again.

"Uh, Rude, can I ask you a question?" We were are the back doorstep of Seventh Heaven then, and it was time for me to go inside.

He nodded hesitantly.

"Am I…well…Reno said…girlfriend." Rude lifted an eyebrow, as if to say _Spit it out, you dork_. "Well, that is to say…am I your girlfriend? Are you my boyfriend?"

He didn't answer for a few seconds. I couldn't make out what he was thinking. After a few moments of silence, I tried to conceal my hurt, suddenly wondering why there was a lump in my throat.

"Oh, well, that's okay then!" I said hastily, extricating my hand from his and turning toward the door. "I was just wondering, it's not like it _matters_ or anything, just a little question, y'know? Well, Rude, good night, and I guess I'll see you la—"

He had stopped me with one long finger on my mouth. Gently, he turned me around, hand on my shoulder, and tipped my face up to his. I blinked rapidly to keep the tears from falling. _Leviathan, why do I feel so bad all of a sudden? Jeez, it's just _Rude_. I'm such a wimp._

Took me a minute to realize he was leaning down and that he had angled his head to the side just a bit, and then before I could completely register what he was doing, he was kissing me.

His lips weren't particularly large or very thin—they were just somewhere in the middle, and he almost seemed as though he was a little uncertain as to what he was doing. _Hmm, Reno did say he hasn't had many girlfriends_.

Eyes fluttering closed, I leaned into him, wrapping my arms around his powerful shoulders. He was huge, and I was practically microscopic compared to him, and that made it an awkward fit, but at the same time, it was nice. Somewhere in the back of my brain, a little voice was screaming, _HOLY SHIT YOU ARE KISSING TALL, DARK, AND BALDY, _but I wasn't paying attention. He sighed appreciatively into my mouth, moving his jaw a little, and I ran my tongue along his bottom lip.

Humming contentedly, he broke away, pecked me on the forehead, then said, "Good night, Yuffie."

I grinned and staggered inside, wondering why my insides felt like the Midgar Zolom was having a squirming contest with a Malboro.


	12. Chapter 11

Of course, since I'm Yuffie Kisaragi, all this happiness was _not_ bound to last. I mean, c'mon! "Stupid Crap Happening To Me and Ruining All My Fun" is my middle – ah, ah! Who threw that tomato? Sheesh, calm down. I know it's a horrible joke. Get a sense of humor, people!

What happened, you ask? Why, the half-demon man got jealous over the Princess's new relationship, of course.

Funny how I had not heard from Vincent for months, and funny how I thought he didn't care, but then one day he decided to pay a surprise visit to Tifa and the residents of Seventh Heaven. Yeah, he was always stopping in at random moments to let everyone know that no, he had not been eaten by a mutated mold monster from the neglected food in his fridge, and no, he had not gone back to the Shinra mansion and decided to form a Tortured Monsters Union with the Yin Yangs in the basement, and no, he had not accidentally shot himself in the face while cleaning his guns.

Just so happens that, unfortunately for all parties involved, Vincent decided to stop by when Rude was escorting me home from a date, and we were sharing a bit of an intimate moment on the back doorstep of Seventh Heaven. And by "intimate moment," I mean Rude was cradling my head in his hands, about to plant a kiss on my lips. Yes, ten tons of excitement, I know, but he was taking this at his own pace, and I was doing my damnedest not to force him. There had been that nice kiss the week before, but really, that was a huge leap for Rude. I mean, jeez, he hadn't even given me any tongue yet.

Right as he laid his nice warm lips on mine, right when I had slipped my arms (well, as far as I could anyway) around Rude's very nice shoulders, the door swung open, and we broke apart to stare, wide-eyed, at the intruder.

I blinked when I saw that it was Red-caped Rapunzel himself, and I scowled when I realized he had just caught me kissing my new boyfriend. Four months was enough time to get over things between the two of us, but that didn't mean I wanted to see that jerk anytime soon, and _especially_ not with Rude in my arms. I wasn't ready for that confrontation yet.

However, ready or not, it seemed Leviathan and Da Chao wanted to have their merry little way with me. I imagine that they were holding a bunch of marionette controls (Da Chao with the most – he-slash-she has, like, a quadrillion arms), laughing merrily over tea and saying, "Dance, our Royal Wutainese puppet, dance for our sick glee!" Damn those asshole deities.

"Er…Vincent," I said hesitantly. "Heh…"

He cleared his throat and arched an eyebrow, and I saw some emotion I couldn't identify flicker over his face (at the time, I thought it was probably constipation – that man broods so much his bowels must be on strike, waving little picket signs).

"I heard noises," he said, his voice as rich as I remembered it, "and came to make sure nothing was amiss."

"Oh, well, awesome," I replied.

There was a _very_ awkward pause. This was one of Vincent's patented Suffocation Silences. I think it used to be one of his limit breaks before the demons started having cocktail parties in his brain.

To my intense delight, Rude tightened his arm around my waist and cocked an eyebrow as the silence stretched. Finally, I coughed into my hand and said, "Well, er – "

But Rude cut me off. "Do you mind?"

Vincent's mouth tightened into a thin line, and he narrowed his ruby red eyes at my boyfriend (hee, I loved that word!). "Not at all." And with a _slam_, he had closed the door in our faces and left us in peace. Well, strange, anxious silence kind of peace. Which isn't really peace, but whatever.

"So that was, uh…nice," I attempted.

Rude looked down at me and smiled, his eyes twinkling. Or was that the mako? I'll just choose to think that his eyes were twinkling merrily at me.

He grunted in reply, then tucked a strand of my hair gently behind my ear. For such an enormous, hulking, giant of a man – and for a person in the kind of work he did – he was really a rather soft guy when it came to personal matters.

"Maybe it's time I go to bed, eh?" I said. "As much as I do so _love_ cuddling with you out here on the back stoop, it's getting late, and I have to go to work tomorrow."

The same callused fingers that had moved my hair trailed their way down my face to my collar bone, where they traced a gentle, repetitive path. Gooseflesh rippled into life over my skin, and I shivered with delight.

"Do you do that on purpose?" I suddenly asked.

He cocked his head to the side. "What?"

"The sweet little things like this," I said, grabbing him by the wrist and lacing my fingers with his, "that make me go absolutely crazy."

"Crazy?" He frowned quizzically.

"Then maybe you're _not_ doing it on purpose," I mused.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean," I said quietly, blushing slightly and looking away, "is that when you do those things. Well…"

There was silence, and after a moment, he cupped my chin, tilting my face up so he could look me in the eyes. "Yuffie?"

"You make me want to jump your bones," I said in a low voice.

His eyebrows shot up, and he cleared his throat. I clapped my hands over my mouth and started to babble. Remember everyone (and here is another one of my fail-proof personal philosophies, should any of you ever need it), _When in doubt, babble like a brook. An extremely nervous, chatterbox brook that needs to learn to keep its mouth shut._

"Oh, I mean, I didn't mean that, uh, what I meant to say was – er…did you know that your piercings make you look like some kind of terrorist? I mean, I don't know why they let you and Reno into the Turks anyway – Reno looks like he's constantly drunk, and your ears are full of metal and you have that weird sunglasses fetish, you freak. I guess Reno's in because he's banging the management, but you, I mean, I just can't figure that out, Rude – "

He had placed a hand over my mouth by that point, silencing my chatter. You know, it was interesting how much larger Rude seemed to me at times when I was humiliated – like I was some sort of shrinking bug, just waiting to be crushed. Maybe I could make a math problem out of that. Like, if _x_ is Rude, and _y_ is the amount of Yuffie's embarrassment, and _x_ is to the _y_ power, that means that, uh…

Dammit, I never was really good at math anyway.

Slowly, Rude slid his hand down, over my neck, my shoulder, down my side, to my waist, and he mirrored that with his other hand on the opposite side of my body. He drew me close and hugged me tightly, kissing me warmly on the lips, on each cheek, and on the forehead, setting my bones on fire with just those simple actions.

When all I did was stand there with a sort of dumbfounded look on my face, he patted me on the back and gestured, giving a jerk of his head toward the door. Dumbly, I nodded and started to walk in, then paused. When he looked at me questioningly, I grinned hugely, threw my arms around his shoulders, gave him a giant wet smooch on the cheek, and then jumped off him and skipped, cackling, into Seventh Heaven.

-

I had learned a lot of things about Rude in the past few weeks, as we had been getting to know each other. For instance, I was storing up a database of Things To Know About Rude in Case Yuffie Ever Needs to Buy Him a Birthday Present. Okay, no, really, I just liked getting to know him.

Some things I know about Rude:

His favorite color is forest green, and he looks damn good in it too. He likes to wear t-shirts, and he is very fond of stripes. Rude is six feet and two inches tall. He grew up in an orphanage before joining the Turks, so he does not have any family, nor does he have a surname like me (who knows, maybe I could adopt him and give him the Kisaragi name and then he would be my _son ew what am I SAYING_). Rude likes spicy Mideelian food the best, takes his coffee with a lot of sugar and no cream, and prefers that coffee to tea of any kind (maybe I can break him of that with time – mm, good ol' Wutainese Nag Conditioning; the secret is to nag until they _break_). Rude has never had any pets, prefers cats to dogs (points in his favor), and used to have a crush on Tifa (gasp). There's a lot more that I've found out since then and stuff, but that's just a taste of the tip of the iceberg for the curious. (Do people taste the tips of icebergs? I mean, is there, like, an Iceberg Lickers' Union? Where did I even pick up that phrase?)

And another thing – he has a good sense of humor. He put up with my chattering all the time, and he actually laughed at my jokes. I mean, c'mon, people. As spectacularly awesomely fantastical as I am, I know for a fact that often-times, my jokes are _crap_. And he laughs at them. That's either an excellent sense of humor, or he really wants to weasel his way into my pants. I hoped it was the first one.

One thing I will always remember, however, is the first time I ever actually heard Rude genuinely laugh. Now, I had heard the Rude Chuckle, the Rude Snort, and the Rude Huff, but I had not heard a Patented Rude Man Full-Throttle Guffaw yet. There was something like it on the roof the night I called him Peewee, but it was a mere shade away from The Real Thing.

And boy is it a doozy. Rude has one of those crazy infectious awesome laughs like whoa. You know the ones. The ones that come straight out of the belly, and when you hear it – no matter how not funny something is – you start to giggle, and then before you know it you're laughing so hard you have tears running down your face. That was the way Rude laughed.

Let me tell you about the first time Rude laughed so hard that I knew I had to hear him do that again and again. In fact, after that, it was a new goal on a list I mentally kept.

Yuffie's Life Goals:

Number one: conquer the known universe and crown myself Empress Yuffie Kisaragi, Single White Rose of _Every-freaking-where_, Queen of Ultimate Uber-Awesomeness Times a Quadritrillion, Ruler of All Things Beautiful and Smart and Funny and Modest.

Number two: get lots and lots and lots of materia because it's shiny, and I like it.

Number three: make Rude laugh as much as possible.

So, I dunno if you readers know this, but as a ninja, I have to have a lot of disguises. I mean, I've already dressed up like a hobo and a hot blonde broad in this tale of mine, so you've seen it in action, but I wanted to tell you that I actually have an organized Magical Chest of Disguises.

Okay, okay, it's not actually magical. Yes, I know, you are all weeping with disappointment. I mean, yeah, it is booby-trapped with lightning materia that'll give intruders a shock should anyone besides me (the only person who knows how to open it just the right way) try to get into the darn thing, but that doesn't _really_ make it magical.

I just call it the "Magical Chest of Disguises" 'cause I think it sounds cool. It really is a chest, though. I painted googly faces all over it to denote its disguise-y-ness.

_Anyway_. On with this anecdote.

So I had never actually invited Rude to my room before, and the first time I did, we didn't get up to anything besides laughing our asses off (and a little making out). No, seriously, mine fell off! I had to have Rude glue it back on. Boy, was _that_ awkward.

Bwahaha, oh, man, I slay myself.

You see, it all started with Tifa actually inviting Rude over for dinner. The real awkwardness happened because of that. I mean, gawd, I thought that Reno threatening me to treat Rude right was lame and embarrassing – well, I had another thing coming with Tifa, Cloud, Rude, Marlene, Denzel, and me all at dinner together.

I had been wondering for some time what she had been up to, and my question was answered when I staggered in from a long day at the WRO Tower to find her cooking steaks on her indoor grill (boy, that thing is handy – one time, I tried to grill some of Cloud's underwear, just to see if it would work; he was not pleased).

"Oh, _man_, those smell good. But why are you cooking so many?"

The fragrant aroma of the steaks ran up my nose like a freight train and crashed into my olfactory like the train had hit a brick wall at full speed. My stomach growled noisily.

"Well," Tifa said, flipping one of the steaks and making it sizzle, "Rude's coming over for dinner tonight, so I – "

"_WHAT!_"

Tifa winced and then scowled at me. "Yuffie, please, don't shout indoors. Your voice gets so high pitched when you do that, and it hurts my ears."

Mouth agape, I stuttered, "You…i-invited…Rude…to dinner?"

Okay, here is where you must be saying, "Jeez, Yuffie, you've kissed the guy already – what's the big deal anyway? It's not like Tifa's asking you to bang him on a bearskin rug in front of her!"

But no. At least if I was banging Rude on a bearskin rug, I would derive some amount of enjoyment out of it. This was much worse. This was…_dinner with the family_.

Did you hear that dramatic music? Did you feel the earth shake?

Tifa and Cloud and Marlene and Denzel weren't my biological family, of course. That was Godo. AVALANCHE was really the closest thing I had to family. The room I occupied in Seventh Heaven was pretty much _my_ room, and I was hanging around the bar a majority of the time anyway (pretending that I totally did not have anything to do in Wutai at all – haha, what are responsibilities anyway, right?). Granted, I only saw Cid, Barret, and Nanaki once in a blue moon, but even with them missing, some of AVALANCHE was just as much my family as all of AVALANCHE.

Really, having Rude over for dinner with Tifa and Cloud and Marlene and Denzel was the equivalent of _meeting the parents_.

C'mon, people, that time you _had_ to see the lightning flash outside your window, even if it was a perfectly clear day. That's what the phrase "meeting the parents" does to the universe! It is unspeakably evil!

(I must now note that really, Rude would only truly be meeting the parent(s) if he met Godo – and possibly the other Mighty Gods, actually – but the day that happened would be the first day of the Apocalypse, so yeah. This was as close to meeting my parent(s) as Rudey Man was going to get.)

"Why did you invite Rude to dinner?" I was horrified.

"Because, Yuffie," she said. "You've been dating him for nearly two months now, and I think it's time we welcomed him into the family officially."

"Oh, _no_," I moaned. "Why does it have to be officially? I don't _want_ him to be officially welcomed into the family!"

She narrowed her eyes threateningly at me, brandishing her tongs in that completely scary way she has (I swear, Tifa with cooking utensils is one of the most life-threatening situations I have ever been in, and it happens _all_ the time). "Yuffie, don't you care about Rude getting to know your family?"

See? Even Tifa considered us all a family.

"_No_," I said. "Because Cloud is going to be absolutely awkward and ew, and Marlene and Denzel are going to be acting like, well…like little kids."

"Like you don't act like a little kid all the time, Yuffie," she said pleasantly, flipping one of the steaks.

I sighed, knowing there was no way around this. Tifa had that glint in her eye, and I knew that whatever she had been planning, there was no way in all the holy hells that I was going to be able to stop her evil plans. That woman seems so sweet on the outside – with her doe-like, wine-colored eyes, her pink, rosebud mouth, and her long, shimmering hair. But no, she has fighter fists and a soul to match, and Tifa Lockhart knows how to get her way when she really wants it.

Not like any of us can resist Tifa as it is. I mean, even Cloud couldn't (as exemplified by the big-ass rock on her ring finger), and he's quite possibly the most boneheaded man on the planet. Beside Vincent. I think Vincent has everyone beat with mourning over a crime he didn't commit for thirty years (ah, Vincent – the picture of maturity and mental health, that one; no wonder I fell for him hook, line, and extra heavy sinker).

"Well," I said, trying to look on the bright side, "at least it's just gonna be the six of us."

Tifa cocked her head to the side. "Yep. Just the six of us. Maybe if you two stay serious, I can have a big bash and invite Cid and Barret and Nanaki and all the others!"

I nearly passed out with relief. I thought for a moment there she would have some big reveal about how she had invited the rest of AVALANCHE, the Turks, the Five Mighty Gods, Rufus Shinra, and for good measure, a television camera crew to film the calamity that would level all of Edge.

"Oh, thank heavenly Da Chao for that then." I thought about the evening ahead of me. "Call me when Rude gets here," I said, heading upstairs.

"Where are you going?" Tifa called after me.

"To burn incense and pray to my ancestors."

"Well, make sure you're down soon. He'll be here in about five minutes."

Shit. No time to mentally prepare, then.


	13. Chapter 12

A/N: _Sorry for the lateness, readers, but in my defense, it's still Saturday where I am, and I had to add a little to this chapter. It's still unfortunately short, but it seems like a good place to stop, since the fun times are ending soon. Hope you like, update comes next Saturday. As always, I appreciate all your reviews, even if I don't get to answer them, and please, let me know if you found anything particularly funny. Thanks!_

-

"So, Rude," Tifa said conversationally, with that Scary Glint (I've decided from here on out to give it honorary capitals because it is just _that_ scary) in her eyes, "what originally got you interested in Yuffie?"

I gasped and then choked as my mouthful of expertly-seasoned broccoli went down the wrong pipe. Concerned, Rude dropped his fork and rubbed my back soothingly as I wheezed like a fish out of water.

After he had ascertained that he was not going to have to attend my funeral, Rude turned back to his food and chewed pensively. Tifa waited patiently for an answer, seeming, to all intents and purposes, completely innocently curious. If I didn't know her better, I would have fallen for it. I wondered if Rude saw through her ruse.

She was testing him, like any good mother or sister or best friend would (and to me, she can be all three of those things – _at one time_; scary, huh?). I hoped he wasn't about to make some sort of fatal error.

Finally, he swallowed, cleared his throat, and shrugged.

There was a big part of me that was disappointed that he couldn't think of _any_ reason that he liked me, and there was a slightly smaller part of me that was relieved he hadn't taken some grievous misstep.

Tifa frowned a small bit and said, "Oh, well, if you can't think of _one_ reason…" I could tell she was sorry she had even asked, especially because I was blushing horribly – I could feel the heat in my face.

Rude shook his head and gave me a look that could only be described as warm (for Rude at least – this was more apparent because he had taken his sunglasses off for this occasion). "There isn't just one reason. I like everything about Yuffie."

My face flamed up even worse, and I hid behind chugging my giant glass of ice water. Mmm, ice water, does wonders for the…uh…complexion. Or something.

"Oh," Tifa said, a little shocked, and to my surprise, I felt Rude's hand close over mine under the table, and he gave my fingers a gentle squeeze. "I think that's a very good answer!" she said decisively, beaming.

Cloud, for his part, looked at Tifa, then me, and then at Rude. After deliberating for a moment, he gave Rude a thumbs-up and deadpanned, "Smooth."

I was dreadfully embarrassed throughout the conversation – not that too many embarrassing things were said, really, but having Rude there, knowing that Tifa and Cloud were sort of sizing him up, made me sort of nervous. And it did _not_ help that Marlene and Denzel were snickering quietly to each other every time I even started a sentence. Eesh, kids. You'd think that, once in a while, they could take things with maturity and – oh, who am I kidding? Just forget I even started that sentence at all.

When dinner was over and we had cleared our plates of Tifa's delicious double-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (Tifa is _trying_ to make me fat – I just know it), there was a very brief, awkward pause.

"Well, I guess," I said, hesitating.

"Cloud and the kids and I are going to watch some television," Tifa said cheerily, with a suspicious twinkle in her wine-colored eyes. "You and Rude can do whatever you want." She waved a dismissive hand at us.

"Do you need help cleaning the – "

"No, no!" she interrupted quickly. "That's fine. You entertain your guest."  
I didn't like the way she had phrased that question, the sneaky woman. I narrowed my eyes at her, and she just smiled, completely guileless. Whatever.

"Okay, well…Rude and I are gonna go chill. Sound good, Shades?"

He shrugged and said, "Sure."

"Gee, sound less enthused, why don't you," I drawled.

He smiled very slightly, and I took him by the hand and led him up the stairs to my room. When we got in there, I shut the door quietly behind us and went and sat down on my bed, feeling suddenly awkward.

I mean, sure, Rude had been in my room before, what with the whole saving-me-from-potential-crime-lords-and-their-crazy-harpy-girlfriends-and-then-seeing-to-it-that-I-recovered-from-a-brain-breaking-concussion thing. But inviting him into my domain, with just the two of us, with my head thankfully intact (I mean, jeez, how often is my head actually intact? Not often, I'll tell you that much).

"So," I said, and I could feel one of those eye-spinningly long rambles coming on. You know the ones – the kind where I feel extremely awkward, and I want to talk to fill up the silence. "That was really nice, wouldn't you agree? I mean, what with the awkwardness, the invasive questions, the delicious food, the kids giggling every time I even opened my mouth, Cloud actually trying to _joke_ – I mean, it could've been a regular meet-the-parents type of thing, y'know? Heck, I'm surprised Tifa didn't break out the baby pictures of me pink and squealing and naked in the bathtub! Er, not that Tifa actually has pictures of me pink and squealing and naked in the bathtub, 'cause, y'know, that would be weird, and – "

Rude covered my mouth lightly with one of his giant hands. If he had wanted to, he probably could've covered my whole face with his hand. With a tiny quirk of his lips, he said, "Shh. You talk too much sometimes."

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. How did he always make me feel like an awkward dork?

To dispel the awkwardness, I looked wildly around the room, and my eyes alighted on my Magical Chest of Disguises, with all its googly eyes staring accusingly at me, like, "Ew, quit making yourself look bad. Sheesh."

So I bounced off the bed and bounded over to my chest and said, "Hey, Rude-a-potamus. Wanna see my disguise collection?"

Rude lifted an eyebrow at me, and when I paused, waiting for more of a response, he waved his hand as if to say, "If you must do this to yourself, Yuffie, then please, carry on." I grinned and started rummaging through it as he craned his neck, trying to see what I was doing.

Snickering quietly to myself, I decided I would make this very good, so I grabbed a bundle of clothes, raced into the hallway, put them on, and then walked stiffly back in, attempting to put on a very formal, slightly smug air.

"Rude, where _has_ Reno gotten to this time?" I asked, making sure to pull my mouth tight as I spoke. "I've received some complaints that he's gone and painted a picture of a hand giving the middle finger on the side of someone's building. Can you _please_ attempt to keep your partner in check? Also, tell him I want to see him for a, ahem, man-to-man _meeting_."

Rude looked like he was about to burst out laughing. His voice slightly thick, he said, "Yuffie, why are you wearing white hospital clothes?"

"What _are_ you talking about, Rude? This is my best white suit, and you must have no taste. Reno picked it for – I mean, I had it especially tailored because I wanted one like it."

"Are you…are you trying to be Rufus?" He looked like he was either on the verge of laughing or crying.

"Of course I am! And I'm doing a damn good job of it too," I said in the exact same tone of voice.

"No…" he said slowly. "No, you're not."

"Okay, fine," I said, relenting. But try _this_ one on for size!" I darted to the trunk, rummaged around a bit, grabbed some things, and ran out into the hall to change again.

When I re-entered, I swaggered in, smirking smugly. "Hey-a, partner, what's going on?"

This time, I distinctly heard the rumble of a laugh in Rude's chest.

"Y'know, partner, I've been thinkin', and I've decided we ought to get married. I never told you this, but I think you got a hot ass."

Rude choked. "Are you supposed to be Reno?"

I fingered the blue Turk suit I was wearing. "Um, duh. And I'm doing a damn good job of it too, Rude. Admit it."

"Where in the world did you get a Turk suit?"

I winked. "Wouldn't _you_ like to know."

I heard him say "Uh, actually I would," as I grabbed some more clothes and ran into the hall. When I came back in, he looked like he was about to die.

"Where's Mother!" I whimpered, the tight black leather clinging to me. It wasn't _exactly_ what the Remnants had worn – a tight, short halter top and black leather pants – but it was form-fitting, it was real leather, and it was hilarious (if I do say so myself).

"I…you…" Rude's voice was quivering.

Then I started to imitate sobbing. "I just want to see Mother again!"

Rude burst out laughing, and he was laughing so hard, I could've sworn the walls were shaking. Oh, it was wonderful, simply wonderful. And soon, I had collapsed next to him on the bed, laughing just as hard, laughing until tears were running down my face, until_ everything_ seemed funny.

And then, suddenly, Rude was kissing me, pecks on the mouth, all over my face, pausing to let out his deep, rumbling, thunderous laugh every few times, until the laughter had slowed, and he was gazing down at me with this look on his face that made my stomach clench and my blood thrum.

One thing I really liked about Rude was that he always seemed to be paying a hell of a lot of attention to whatever he was looking at. He didn't just stare into space, he didn't just look through you when his eyes were on you – he really studied you. His eyes were always alert and perceptive.

My whole body tingled. Rude is _so_ hot, and I don't even think he realizes that most times. On second thought, that probably makes him hotter. See, people like Reno _know_ they're hot – you can tell by the way they walk, by the way they call everyone _sugar_ and _princess_, and by the way they're totally screwing the president of the most powerful company in the world. Okay. Maybe not that last one. _But still_. It sort of detracts from the attractiveness when the person is aware of how hot he/she is.

Suddenly, he was kissing me deeply, slowly, his tongue in my mouth, and I was pushing back, and he was half on top of me, supporting his weight with one hand, and I could feel his other hand tracing patterns against my bare midriff. I pushed back, molding into his arms, reversing our positions and rolling on top of him. My legs straddled his hips.

I was shocked to hear him growl very quietly. It rumbled pleasantly from somewhere in his chest and settled in his throat. His reaction to my role-reversal was enthusiastic, and I could only assume that he actually _liked_ me taking charge. I only pulled back when his teeth pinched my lip hard enough to sting.

When I grimaced and sucked on the sore spot, he frowned and said, "Sorry. Got carried away."

I cleared my throat and patted his bald head. "That's quite all right, Rude-a-licious. In fact, I think you should… 'get carried away' more often. If you know what I mean." When I wiggled my eyebrows, he chuckled.

And that was the night I heard Rude really, truly laugh. We spent the evening cuddling (I swear all we did was cuddle – and make out some more) until Rude went home. It was…well, perfect.

The next day, Reeve called me.


	14. Chapter 13

A/N: _I'm so sorry for the delay, my lovely readers. I really didn't mean for this to take so long, but Mengde came and went and I got kind of lazy and listless, but here I am again, and I'll try not to get off schedule anymore. I hope you like this chapter - it's kind of a change of pace._

-

Everyone, this is where the story gets… well, bad. Okay, maybe not bad, but let me put it this way. Does anything ever go right for Yuffie Kisaragi? No! How many times have I mentioned this in the story so far – the gods hate me. I don't know why. (Don't look at me like that – thieving and swearing and un-piety and all that stuff doesn't count. Sheesh. I'm the ruler of a country. You'd think fate would cut me a little slack 'cause, y'know, I'm royalty and all, but _noooo_. Maybe it's 'cause I date all these foreigners and I can't pick a nice purebred boy to initiate heavy petting with. What can I say, apparently I like 'em bald and big. _Oh Leviathan that could be so wrong aaaaaah_.)

-

"What do you _mean_ you want me to go on a mission with Vincent? Why, for the love of Leviathan's sparkly fins, do you want me to go on a mission with that undead brain-eater? I can't believe you called me here for _this_."

Reeve sighed at me, exasperated. I think I am quite possibly the one thing that makes his job unbearable. Without me, the prancin' dancin' ninja extraordinaire, I think he'd be a perfectly happy man with a couple of kids (I say this because I think I am his birth control – he imagines what it would be like if he had kids like me and then promptly throws up and never has sex without a condom).

"Yes, Yuffie, I want you to go on a mission with that undead brain-eater."

"What is an undead brain-eater?"

"Vincent," Reeve blurted, his voice a little squeaky. He cleared his throat. "We were just discussing the mission I am assigning Yuffie to."

"Mission?"

"Yes, and I tell you this because you're going with her."

"I see," Vincent said with perfect aplomb. Damn him, he didn't even _blink!_ What the hell is that? I swear to Da Chao, ever since he dropped me like a hot tamale, it's like he doesn't care at all. I just want to punch him in his overly pretty, luscious mouth. Asshole. "What is the mission?"

"Well, I shouldn't call it a mission, per se," Reeve mused. "I guess it's more like, well… an inspection."

"An… inspection?" I echoed.

Reeve nodded. "At least, that's what we're going to make it look like."

"Look like?" I raised an eyebrow. "Just what are we covering up here? Get to the point, Reeve."

Vincent gave me a _look_. Holy hell, Vincent, I'm not three years old. I WILL SPEAK TO REEVE HOWEVER I PLEASE. (Unless he's threatening to fire me or something.) Man, I needed to calm down or else there'd be Vincent guts all over the room, and seriously, cleaning guts out of the upholstery and the wallpaper is just not a pleasant task for anyone. I wouldn't want to inconvenience the janitors like that, y'know? I like 'em too much. I know this one named Phil, this one time he let me in when I couldn't find my key-card after hours, and – oh, sorry. Tangent.

Reeve scowled at me. "Yuffie – "

"Sorry, sorry."

"Okay," he said, lightening a little. "What we're covering up is this – there have been rumors of something illegal going on in Junon – at one of _our_ air-shipping stations."

"Oh, really, do _tell_," I said, leaning over his desk and wiggling my eyebrows.

He smirked a bit. "We're not exactly clear on the details, but someone might be deliberately miscounting the stock of our artillery shipments. Numbers aren't adding up, and we need to know what it's about. We need to know if this is a calculated event."

"How many times has this happened?"

"Three times in the last month," Reeve said. "We need you to see if there's anything nefarious going on. But we don't want to let anyone onto the _real_ reason you two are at the plant. Doubtless, having Yuffie Kisaragi and Vincent Valentine 'inspecting' the place will raise a few eyebrows, but if you don't draw any further attention to yourselves, you should be able to get some actual work done."

"Why us, Reeve?"

"You two are the best agents we have, and you'll get the job done quickly and efficiently. I don't want to send some newbie out there and have our cover blown."  
"All right, when do you want us to head out?"

"We'll have an airship waiting for you tomorrow."

"Is that all you wanted?"

"You might have to stay in Junon a couple of days, so pack some clothes."

"Aye, aye, captain!" I saluted Reeve, and with one last glance at Vincent, who was not looking at me, I left.

-

The next day, the airship ride was, well, tense.

I know, I know, we had broken up (if you can even call it that, I mean, it's not like we had a damn relationship) four months earlier, and I was most likely just making it worse for myself by feeling tense, by feeling like _he_ was feeling tense, but seriously, _he's such a jerk, and I hate him!_ Okay, not really. I probably still had feelings for him, and no amount of my newfound affection for Rude could completely stamp them out. That was just going to take time, and I hadn't had enough yet.

Since we had arrived late in Junon, we decided to just turn in for the night and see about inspecting the shipping station the next day. But then the gods decided to smirk cruelly and use me as their plaything. _Again_.

"What do you _mean_ you mixed up our booking?" I spluttered. "Fix it!"

"Ma'am," said the nasally desk attendant, "we offer our sincerest apologies, but there was a mix-up, and we've booked the both of you in a single room."

"A… single room?" I said slowly.

"Yes."

"Okay, well, then get us another room. That simple." I clapped my hands together and grinned in triumph.

The clerk simpered apologetically, and my heart sank. "I'm afraid we have no extra rooms, ma'am. Just the one."

"What!"

"Yuffie, please calm down," Vincent murmured. I shot him a glare. With a lift of his eyebrow, he stepped in front of me and began to negotiate with the woman. Fuming, I slumped into a nearby chair in the lobby, occasionally catching phrases like _holiday weekend_ and _all the other hotels are booked too_ and _Junon is big on tourists_ and _terribly sorry_.

When Vincent came back, and I saw that he was only carrying one room key, I scowled. He sighed, a short puff of air, and I knew there would be no arguing the situation. "So we're sharing a room then?"

"Yes. There is no way around it."

"Fine," I said, and I snatched the key unceremoniously from him, leading the way to _our_ room.

_Fuck you, Leviathan! Fuck you and your fishy self! I hate you, Da Chao! __I am going to paint giant wangs all over you when I get home to Wutai! __Payback is a bitch._

I was aware that I was acting rather childish; it wasn't Vincent's fault that we only had one room. However, it _was_ Vincent's fault that he had broken my heart four months before, and I am so great at acting like an overgrown, spoiled brat. Yay for being raised like a princess!

When I threw open the door to our room with Vincent following close behind, I let out a short grunt of irritation at the realization that there was only one bed. It was obviously made for two people, but no effing way was I about to spend the night in the same bed as Vincent. I knew one thing, though – I wasn't going to be the one sleeping on the floor or in the bathtub.

I heard the door click shut quietly behind us as I threw my bag down by the night stand and flopped onto the bed like a petulant child. There was silence for a few glorious moments.

And _then_, "Yuffie."

"Yes, Vincent?" I said shortly.

"Is there something wrong?"

Leviathan, I hated the sound of his voice. It was so, so… stupid! And delicious and velvety and all washing-over-you-in-warm-buttery-dark-tones-like-chocolate-and-sexy-things-and… fuck. Not being over Vincent was some hard stuff.

"No, Vincent. Nothing's wrong. Nothing at all. Why would anything be wrong? That's ridiculous. Everything could not be more right than it is now."

"You're lying. Why are you acting this way, Yuffie? I realize that sharing a room will be an inconvenience, but I didn't know that my presence was so odious to you."  
Slowly, ever-so-slowly, I rolled over so I was facing him. I studied him, standing there so stiffly in the middle of the room, so Vincent-like. His face was impassive, but after all the time we had spent together, after all the things I had discovered about him, I knew that he was annoyed.

"Vincent, don't pretend you don't know what's bothering me. And if you really don't know the reason, then I definitely don't want to talk to you about it. I don't talk to stupid people."

His eyes shuttered, and I knew the conversation was over. For the moment, at least.

Really, my hostility toward Vincent was a new thing. Ever since I had gotten together with Rude, I had sincerely wanted to put away any lingering feelings I might've had for Tall, Dark, and Vampiric. I'd been through the grieving stage, the depression, the denial, and that whole acting-like-I-didn't-care-and-feeling-really-awkward stage (that had been the most recent), and now I was just angry at him for existing and making me feel things for him, dammit. I wanted to be happy with Rude and not be feeling anything, no matter how small or doomed, for Vincent.

That night, I took a special sort of relish (and not the hot dog kind) in Vincent sleeping on the floor.

-

You know, it's funny how, sometimes, life is not what you think it is.

And by this awesomely philosophical statement, I mean that there was not actually any problem at the shipping station. Before I tell you the wondrous blunder that the gods laid in my lap, I'll tell you about some important shit that went down between me and Vincent.

Yeah. Shit did go down, unfortunately. I mean, did you expect any differently from Yuffie the Wonder Girl and Vincent the Brood-Meister?

From where I left off, we woke up the next morning and brushed our teeth and stuff in silence, and then we headed out to the shipping station in silence, and we didn't look at each other unless we were checking to make sure we weren't looking at each other. Or maybe that was just me?

As we questioned different people and "inspected" the area, I noticed that nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

And then we met Herb.

"Miss Kisaragi, Mr. Valentine, I'd like you to meet Herb Walker. He handles stock and inventory," said the young man who had been giving us the grand tour. (And by grand tour, I mean snooze-fest, 'cause ohmigawd there couldn't have been anything boring-er than walking around a plant and _pretending_ to inspect it – well. Except maybe listening to Cid talk about how to make the best cup of tea ever. _BORING._)

"A pleasure to meet you," Herb said. Herb sounded like he had a severe cold, and his face was sort of scrunched-up funny-looking, but he had a nice smile and big thick glasses. In fact, his glasses were so thick that they magnified his eyes by several times, giving him this weird, bug-like appearance. His squat body didn't help. It sort of reminded me of a cute, oversized beetle. I immediately liked him and wanted to tackle-hug him for some reason.

"Hi, Herb!" I chirped. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vincent give me a fleeting, funny look, but I ignored him. He also murmured a hello.

"So, Herby," I said, "tell us about what you do here."

"Well, I keep records of what comes in and out of the plant," said Herb. "Mostly I'm just a paper-pushing number-cruncher. Not very interesting, I'm afraid. However, if you want to see where I work, I can give you a short tour." He smiled that funny little smile again, and I couldn't help but grin back. He was just so… _nice_.

"Awesome!"

Our tour-guide from before said, "Miss Kisaragi, Mr. Valentine, will you be all right with Herb? Is there anything else you need from me?"

"Nah, we're cool," I said, waving a hand at him. "We'll let'cha know if we need anything else, mmkay?"

"Right so, let me just show you my office," Herb said.

There were countless hallways in the shipping station. Many of them led off to wide open areas where airships constantly landed and took flight every day. Some of them led off to offices and storage rooms and janitor closets, etc. As Herb chattered friendlily (THAT IS TOTALLY A WORD, SHUTUP), I pretended to write comments on my very official pretend clipboard (that is to say that the clipboard had no real purpose except to make me look official, not that the clipboard was not actually real, heh).

Finally, we stopped at a door with the name "WALKER" printed on the window in those nice black block letters that all official-type people have on their doors. When Herb opened the door and flicked on the light, I whistled.

"Wow, Herb. Nice set up ya got here."

Herb blushed. D'aww, I just wanted to pet him and hug him and feed him cookies. He was so squishy and huggable-looking. "I've been with this plant for quite a while, Miss Kisaragi. I was here before the WRO took over for Shin-Ra and cleaned this place up. Seniority comes with a comfy desk job and a coffee maker. Oh, and a couch."

And he actually did have a couch too. I scampered over and flopped onto it unceremoniously, sighing in bliss. "Ohhh, my aching feet."  
"Er… are you all right, Miss Kisaragi?"

"Inspecting plants _sucks_, Herb. It sucks a lot. Being on your feet this much sucks. Your couch, however, does not suck. In fact, it is quite the opposite. This count is rather divine, if I do say so myself. I would bet that Leviathan and Da Chao probably blessed this couch before its wonderful, comfy birth."

Herb looked as if he was struggling not to laugh. Vincent looked like he wanted to kill me.

"You're certainly friendlier than any of the officials who've come to inspect the plant before," Herb commented. He immediately blushed again, obviously knowing he had said something that could get him in trouble. That is, if we were real plant inspectors. Frankly, I didn't care. I planned to milk this for all it was worth.

"Oh, I know, Herb. Those guys back at Plant Inspection Headquarters are a bunch of stiffs. I can't even get them to come over to play poker with me on Fridays."

He frowned. "That's terrible! Wait… there's a Plant Inspection Headquarters?"

I nodded gravely. "Oh yes. Shin-Ra takes inspecting very, very seriously."

Herb seemed to cotton onto the utter seriousness of the situation and nodded as well, appearing solemn. "I imagine it does."

Vincent, I could tell, was getting more and more agitated.

Besides the _totally sweet_ couch that Herb had (did I mention it was a nice floral pattern?), I noticed that his desk was totally disorganized. There were papers _everywhere_. Teetering stacks were all over the place, looking like they were about to fall and scatter everywhere.

Herb saw where my gaze was directed. "Oh, er, sorry about the mess. I'm a little bit disorganized."

"'S okay, Herb. You get the job done. That's the important part."

His ears went pink again. I really liked Herb. At the same time, though, something was niggling at the back of my mind, but I couldn't place my finger on what.


	15. Chapter 14

"Vincent, I'm not inspecting the plant with you today."

Vincent just looked at me, waiting for the punchline. There wasn't one.

"No, really. I'm not."

"Why."

Grrr, I hated that weird way he could make things that were supposed to be questions sound like _demands_ for answers.

"Because I'm going to investigate on a _deeper_ level, Broody-Moody-Man. A deeper level than you could _ever_ imagine, where wonders untold lie, where the secrets of the universe are waiting to be – "

"Yuffie. What are you talking about?" I could tell he was in no mood for jokes. Well, that was fine and dandy because I was in no mood to _not_ give him an atomic wedgie and hang him from a flag pole by his tighty whities (c'mon, you know he wears 'em – the man's an anti-social nerd, through and through).

"I'm going to use the ventilation shafts in the plant to snoop around a bit and see if I can uncover anything nefarious." At the word nefarious, I rubbed my hands together gleefully.

"How will you fit?"

"Oh, their air ducts are freakin' _huge_. Probably because of the size of the plant. I noticed 'em yesterday, and after studying 'em a bit, I figured they'd probably hold my weight."

Vincent lifted an eyebrow. "What do I tell them in your absence?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. Who cares. Make something up."

"I don't – "

I threw my hands in the air and sighed impatiently. "Vincent! Use your imagination. Gah, if you can't think of anything, tell them I came down with a case of explosive diarrhea. And vomiting. _At the same time_. And that it's all orange from possible radioactivity and that there's no way for them to see me without contamination."

His pale brow furrowed in disgust (or as much disgust as Vincent cares to show), and he said, "Very well then."

"I mean, sheesh, you _can_ tell them something else if you want. I know your imagination's dead, but see if you can resurrect it with a voodoo spell or something."

He declined to comment and instead swept out the front door immediately afterward. I could tell he was in a sour mood – don't ask me how I differentiate his normal bitchiness from actual, authentic sourness, but I do. It's kind of the same way I go about decoding Rude's facial expressions, only, y'know, I do _that_ with more joy and enthusiasm because Rude's not a douche bag.

After Vincent left, I laced up my boots, strapped on my equipment belt – complete with a flashlight, gloves, and a few sure-to-be useful tools – and fairly skipped out the door.

I do so love ninja work. It's the best.

-

Dammit, getting into the fuggin' air ducts had been hard enough. Why did climbing in the air ducts themselves have to be such a mo-fo-in' hassle?

First, I had to make sure no one saw me getting into the stupid things. That was a nightmare. I may be a ninja, but sneaking into places in broad daylight is just not easy.

It helped that anyone who saw me recognized me and thought I was coming in after Vincent. When I finally slipped out of sight, I was in a dusty storage room full of spare airship parts. Looked like no one had been in there for a while. In this plant, there were a lot of rooms with extremely high ceilings, where the air ducts ran through them exposed. This little storage room, however, was normal human height. All I had to do was unscrew the cover from the wall to get into the ducts.

Inside the metal tunnels, it was really dusty. Ick. I bet anyone who worked there had a respiratory infection of some sort. No wonder Herb had this weird habit of making strange, guinea pig snorty noises.

My plan was to prance around in the air ducts for a bit and see if I could find any decent places to spy from – that way, if there was anything suspicious going on, I might be able to catch someone in the act. Or, you know, catch some crazy hot porno action like boss-on-employee stuff going on. I bet that's what Reeve and Elena do – screw in his office on the desk or something.

Oh, uh. Sorry, creepy tangent. Ew, that hurt my brain.

So I shimmied through the air ducts without finding _anything_ of interest. C'mon, doesn't _anyone_ have any dark secrets nowadays? I mean, seriously, I'm not asking for another crazed mako-junkie with the jitters trying to annihilate the entire planet, mind you. I just want somebody to store their nudey magazines in the air ducts or hide their creepy baby-doll collection there.

I passed the time by looking through every grate I could find to see if there was anything that needed investigating. I saw a few rooms I recognized, and I stopped dead when I ended up peering though the metal vents at none other than Herb Walker.

Remembering that there was _still_ something bothering me about Herb – something I couldn't quite put my finger on – I decided to breathe very, very quietly and keep an eye on him. And here's the exciting conclusion of my tale of Herb Walker and the niggling in the back of my mind.

The real reason behind the stock mess-ups and the missing stuff and my nagging feeling?

Herb Walker is just absent-minded and really, really blind. No, seriously. I mentioned how messy his desk was? I mentioned how thick his glasses are?

I laid there in that air duct and watched him take his glasses off, clean them, and knock a huge stack of messy papers off in the process of reaching for a cup of coffee with his other hand. _Then_ when he tried to put his glasses back on and take a sip of coffee at the same time, he managed to hit himself in the face with his coffee mug and put his glasses in his mouth.

I was only _just_ able to hold in my laughter that. As it was, I nearly split a side forcing it down. I'm surprised I didn't hack up a kidney or something. (That totally happened to me once. You see, this one time I – okay, no. I can't even keep a straight face on that.)

Something was starting to take shape in my mind, a hunch of sorts.

-

"Well, I've figured it out. We can go home."

It was late, and we were having take-out in the hotel room.

"What," Vincent said in his this-is-totally-not-an-interrogative-statement-but-actually-it-is way he had. Urge… to punch in face… rising…

I clenched my fists and said, in this sickeningly sweet, cheerful voice, "Oh, Vincent, are you sure you want to know? We _could_ stay here and inspect the plant some more, and there's really no reason to jump to conclusions. I mean, this hotel room is so cozy, and I know you just _enjoy _my company _so much_."

"Yuffie." Ooooh, I was hitting his nerves like a fat man doing a Kalmish clog dance on a menstrual Tonberry.

"You know, on second thought, we should probably make sure there's nothing else up. I mean, really, all I have are suspicious and educated guesses, and you know how unreliable things like that are, so we should take a few more days here. In fact, if you want, we can an off-day and see the sights of Junon and – "

"_Yuffie_," Vincent snapped, and he was staring at me with heated red eyes, ticked beyond belief. I knew the needling would make him irritated, but I wasn't sure exactly why he was so pissed.

"Vincent," I said, voice frosty.

"There is some problem between us, and we will never solve it unless you are forthcoming."

Silence. With a huge amount of effort, I kept my mouth from falling open in astonishment. Did he really not understand what the problem was? When I didn't answer for a few moments, he struggled to fill the pause.

"You have seemed… uncharacteristically cold to me… these past few months. If I have done wrong by you, I would like to make amends somehow."

I could tell he was having trouble with this. Vinnie Valentine isn't the apologizing type. In fact, Vinnie Valentine wasn't the kind to extend any sort of olive branch, and if he really didn't know what was wrong with me, then he probably didn't want to make the first move.

"You really… really don't get it, do you?"

Vincent just stared at me.

I sighed explosively and turned my back on him. "Vincent, you broke my damn heart. _That's_ what this is about, you idiot. I'm angry at you. I've _been_ angry at you for months. How can you not see that?"

"I had thought… that we were coming to a better understanding. And then you grew cold again."

"Yeah, well, what's it to you?" I turned and saw that he was very, very close to me, barely a foot away. That made me uncomfortable, especially since I was still extremely attracted to him.

After a beat, he said, "I would like for us to be amiable comrades again, Yuffie."

I stared at him. "'Amiable comrades'? You can't even say that we were friends?"

"We were. Are. Why are we not friends now?"

"Leviathan damn you, Vincent! You're so _stupid_! Look, can we just not talk about this anymore? I don't think this is conducive to me not dropkicking you off the balcony."

You could practically reach out and grab the tension running through the air in that moment. Finally, Vincent said, "What have you discovered that may allow us to return to Reeve?"

I decided to pretend the conversation of moments ago had never taken place. "Okay, so, know all the miscounted cargo and stuff?"

"That is why we are here, yes."

Obnoxious bastard. I stepped away from him to the sliding glass doors. "I'm pretty sure we can go home because I managed to get into the ventilation system yesterday, and I think I discovered what the problem is. Or rather, _who_ the problem is."

"And?"

"It's kind of lame, really. I was hoping for something more interesting. At least now we can go home, which is good 'cause I am craving some of Tifa's fried chicken, and Rude will – "

Vincent cleared his throat.

"Oh, right, so our problem is that Herb Walker is kind of a dork."

"A… dork?"

I almost laughed at Vincent's puzzled expression.

"Yep. He gets stuff mixed up all the time. His desk is a disaster area that could probably beat out Midgar in a Which Place Are You More Likely To Get Lost and Die In contest, and I don't think he sees all that well, even with the gigantic glasses he wears. I mean, seriously, I watched the man drink his glasses and put his coffee on his face today."

"Drink… his glasses?"

"Yeah, uh, forget I said that." I waved a dismissive hand. "Anyway, I think the solution to this problem is getting Herb a fresh-faced young assistant that he can boss around and use to help him get organized."

"I see."

I checked the clock on the wall. It was eight thirty in the evening. No way would we be able to get Reeve to arrange a plane back to Edge for us. I'd have to spend one more agonizing night with Stupid Face.

"I'll call Reeve. He should be able to get us a flight out of here tomorrow," Vincent said.

-

As I got ready for bed that night and passed Vincent several times, I noticed him looking at me in a way that I couldn't quite identify. I was _so_ done with his crap. Thinking about the way I used to (kind of still did) feel for him just rankled me.

I missed Rude, even though I hadn't been away from Edge for very long.

Several times, Vincent looked as though he were about to say something to me, and once he even opened his mouth, but nothing ever came of it. When I crawled into the only bed in the room and thought sadistically about how he was going to have to sleep on the floor once more (and wished him many sore joints in the morning), he was out on the balcony, staring at the night sky and leaning against the railing.

When I woke up, he was standing in the exact same place, as if he hadn't moved an inch; as if he were an ice sculpture and I could've gone and broken a brittle, frozen finger off one of his hands.


	16. Chapter 15

A/N: _After a long hiatus that will NOT be happening again, here is some more Strong, Silent Type. Sorry for the wait, readers. But now I've got TNTK out of the way, this'll be a breeze._

-

The first thing I did when I got back was call Rude.

"Hello, Yuffie," he answered, voice rumbling over the phone. Even after only a couple of days, I really missed that voice.

"Rudey! Are you psychic or something?"

"Caller ID."

"Oh, right. Well… anyway. I'm back in the city. Um…"

"Are you at Seventh Heaven?"

"Yep. Home sweet home for me, my friend."

"Pick you up in ten?"

I blinked. "What, miss me or something, Rude?"  
"Yes."

"Oh. Ten minutes? How you gonna get here so fast? Fly?"

"You'll see."

And see I did when ten minutes later, Rude screeched up on a gleaming black motorcycle. His tires skidding across the street left a black line in their wake. He came to a stop skillfully, handling the bike like a master of motorcycles.

"Whoa," I gasped. "Rude-Man, I didn't know you _had_ a motorcycle!"

He smirked at me, the bike idling with a low _put put put_.

I put my hands on my hips. "You didn't have one before I left, did you, you big lug?"

He grunted in assent, then gestured for me to get on. He helped me swing my leg up and over, saying, "Exhaust pipes're hot. Look out." Tentatively, I held onto his waist, but he grabbed my arms and pulled me sharply forward, nestling me against his back comfortably. The juncture of my thighs pressed against him from behind. He couldn't see me blushing.

I liked this, though. This was comfortable. This was nice. This was right. Especially as the muggy Edge air washed over us, and I realized Rude was taking us into the countryside. Edge and Midgar were shit-holes, but the grassy plains around them really were something beautiful to behold.

When we got out of the city limits and into the fields ringing the area, Rude pulled over onto the side of the road and dismounted, helping me down. And by helping me down, I mean he grabbed me by the waist and lifted me up and over the seat like I didn't weigh more than a chocobo feather.

Rude lifted a few things out of some side compartments on the bike – a plastic bag with something in it, a thermos, plastic cups, a blanket.

"Is this some sorta picnic?"

He nodded. "Meteor shower tonight."

"Boy, I bet Sephiroth would like that!" When I grinned like a maniac, he lifted an eyebrow. I relented. "Okay, bad joke."

Rude laid out the blanket and all the food – sandwiches, vegetables, fruit. I stared.

"Did you make all this yourself?"

He shook his head. "Store bought."

"Even the sandwiches?"

He nodded. Watching him work, realizing how much I had missed him over the past few days, I approached him from behind, walking around. He was kneeling on the blanket (which I noticed had little dancing moogles on it, so I wondered where the hell he'd found that), so I bent over, and very sexily (in my opinion), slid my hands over his shoulders and gently took his glasses off his face.

For his part, Rude leaned into my touch minutely, his movements halting.

Hesitant, I whispered, "Hey, Rude-Man. I missed your huge self, you know?"

He peered at me over his shoulder, eyes unguarded and shining faintly in the lowering night. The slight smile that quirked at his lips told me all I needed to know. He had missed me too.

He turned back to his preparations, and I leaned over his shoulder, wrapping my arms loosely around his neck and cuddling the back of his bald head. He needed a shave – his stubble was rubbing against my cheek.

"Hope you're hungry."

"Lucky you, you caught me right before dinner," I said. "Also lucky for you, Tifa was _not_ serving fried chicken. I would've turned your ass down if that were the case."

"Lucky me," he chuckled, his voice low. I almost went weak in the knees. Weird how attracted I was to a bald giant with hams for hands.

I stopped draping myself over him like a two-dollar hooker and decided to eat. And eat I did. You see, I am not one of those girls who will pick at the croutons in her salad at a fancy dinner in order to look thin. If you ain't eatin' that, Yuffie'll be eatin' that. Thanks.

(And sometimes when you _are_ eatin' that, Yuffie will, nevertheless, be eatin' that. Hold onto your plates, ladies and gentlemen!)

After I devoured all _my_ share, I went to eye up Rude's, only to discover that he had sucked his down like a drain. He was calmly patting his stomach and observing me as I chowed.

"Rude Eugene Bartleby!" I gasped with mock concern. "One of these days, I'm gonna have to challenge you to an eating contest."

He quirked an eyebrow at my chosen name for him, and I shrugged. "You totally look like a Eugene. And you know it."

He rolled his eyes.

"What? _What?_" Rude simply shook his head at me, his mouth curling up in a delightful little smile that warmed me to my toes. "Fine. What do _I_ look like? I don't have a middle name either, and since I just gave you one, turnabout is fair play."

He mulled it over, chewing on a toothpick pensively. Finally, around the toothpick he mumbled, "Sally."

My eyes bugged out. It's a good thing they didn't pop out. I think picking my eyeballs out of his lap would've been kind of a turn off, even for Rude I-Am-A-Rock Eugene Bartleby. (No, seriously, that is totally his name now. If I ever marry him, I will be Yuffie Bartleby. Best. Name. _Ever_.)

"That is _such_ a sissy name, Eugene. Couldn't you have picked something cooler?" If I didn't know better, I'd say he was attempting to look faux-offended. (However, an actor Rude is not, so this was only indicated by a slight raising of his eyebrows.) "I mean. Seriously. Sally? That's a name you give to a girl who squeals at mice."

Rude cocked his head to the side, seeming to consider. I took that moment to inch a bit closer to him on the blanket. "Was my mom's name."

"I dunno whether to find that creepy or touching," I said, more touched than creeped out. Though I would never admit that. I'm Yuffie – I don't _do_ sappy all that well. Yay, crack jokes to make it less awkward! Or more awkward. One of the two.

He just looked at me contemplatively.

"What? What'cha lookin' at me that way for?" After a few seconds of silence, I rocked forward, shifting my body and thumping against his chest. "Cut it out!"

He grunted with the force of my impact, wrapping his arms around me securely. I sighed with contentment and settled in.

"What was your mom like, Rude-o?"

He hummed, his voice a deep rumble against me. "She was…"

"Awesome? Like you?"

He shook his head. "She was a good person. Very funny."

"Like you!" I paused, nuzzling his neck. "Okay, not like you. You're… not very funny. But it's not a bad thing. I have all I can take of 'funny' with myself, Cait Sith, and Cid. And I use the term funny lightly."

He didn't reply then, and I pulled back to look at his face and noticed a deep, troubled frown. Coming up was a Serious Conversation, little did I know, and I was bad at Serious Conversations.

"What?" I pulled back and looked at his face, noticing the furrows in his forehead. "What'd I say?"

"I'm not a good person, Yuffie."

"Huh?"

"I'm a Turk."

That gave me a pause. He… did have a point there. But… but he was also Rude!

Don't get me wrong, everyone, it wasn't like I hadn't thought of this before. It was just something that I always resolutely pushed to the back of my mind. Sure – Reno, Rude, Tseng, Elena, they were all former Turks, and they had all done some pretty shitty things. Like… I dunno… dropping a giant plate on the entirety of Sector Seven. But you do what you gotta do to put bread on the table, and the Turks were no different.

Not that that makes it okay, I guess, but I had long come to terms with it when we started to become sorta friendly-like with Rufus Shinra and the lot of them. Plus… AVALANCHE had done some pretty shitty things too. Like blowing up power plants and killing plenty of people in the process, all for the Good Fight.

Okay, so I'm rationalizing a bit. Sue me.

"No, you _were_ a Turk," I said. "Now you're a crusader of good things for the WRO!"

He didn't even crack a _tiny_ smile at that.

"Aww, c'mon, that wasn't even a little funny?"

"You're not taking this seriously," he said, surprisingly vocal, and shockingly angry-sounding. His arms were just as comfortable as before, his body relaxed. If I hadn't known him so well, I wouldn't have been able to tell that for the first time ever, he was actually angry at me.

"What do you want me to say?" I snapped, suddenly annoyed. "Oh, Rude, I care so much that you used to murder people as a profession, I have so many doubts about our relationship, I dunno if I can live with your blood-stained hands!" I knew I was pushing it. When his face darkened, I knew I had hurt him. But I went on, knowing it needed to be said.

His fists tightened as I continued, but I ceased with the mocking at that point. "Rude," I said, gentler. Man, this was hard. I wasn't good at being touchy-feely, dammit! "Rude, I already know all that. Hey. _Hey_. Look at me." When he didn't, I turned his face toward me, a little more forceful than I had intended. Surprised glimmered across his face. "I. Don't. Care. I just don't."

He scowled. "Why?" A pause. "I've done terrible things."

"Are you bothered by those terrible things?"

His eyes scanned the horizon behind me. "Sometimes."

"Well, good. That means you have a conscience. And we have something in common. I'm bothered by the terrible things I've done too."

He lifted his eyebrows, curious.

"Rude," I said, jaw tense, "I killed a lot of Shinra grunts and soldiers back in the day. You're not the only murderer around here. You're just the only one who did it as a sort of profession."

He sighed. "Wasn't just killing." He searched for the right words. "Blackmail. Intimidation. Sometimes torture."

I shrugged. "Like I said. I don't care. You're doing your part to help the world out now. So am I. That's all we really _can_ do. So stop acting like Vincent. That's _very_ unattractive, you know."

Rude's eyes crinkled a little at the corners, and I could tell he was relaxing again. "Only you."

"That's me. Only Yuffie."

After that we sort of spread out on the blanket and watched the sun set and named constellations.

"I think that one looks like a smiley face." I pointed.

Rude snorted.

"Just because I think they _all_ look like smiley faces doesn't mean I'm wrong, you know."

"Octopus." He took my wrist in his hand and pointed with my finger. I wasn't really paying attention to the octopus, as you can probably already surmise.

"Oh, that one looks like _you_!" I said, excited, jabbing my fingers violently at the night sky.

"A circle?"

"It's your head!"

He sighed.

At about two in the morning, I was so sleepy, I wasn't really making much sense anymore (traveling across continents and stuff could really do that to a person), so Rude rode with me in front on the motorcycle, all the way back to Seventh Heaven.

I remember Tifa meeting him at the door, and I remember him carrying me up to my room, and I remember him tucking me in, kissing me on the forehead, and leaving.

It's all sort of fuzzy, but there's this part – for a while I didn't know if it had been a dream. After he kissed me on the head, he got the most amazing look on his face, like he was staring at something very, very special, his most prized possession – something that obviously meant the world to him. And he was staring at me. For Rude, that was practically screaming with emotion.

I would mull over that vision for a while.


	17. Chapter 16

A/N: _Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter welcoming me back! I'm sorry I haven't got around to answering reviews. I will soon, promise. Here is chapter sixteen, and I already have the next chapter waiting with the beta, guys, so no worries. This is on the way to completion. I'm excited! Are you excited?_

_As always, if you find anything particularly funny, let me know. I love that.  
_

-

Of course, things get good and trouble starts. _Again_. I'm Yuffie Kisaragi. Does that even surprise you at all anymore?

Trouble trouble trouble. Meaning Vincent "I know of pain beyond human comprehension" Valentine. Stupid Vincent.

But first I have to tell you about the first time I spent the night with Rude. Because everything sort of started from there and then spiraled out of control like when you drop your cell phone in the toilet as you're flushing.

The first night I ever spent with Rude was… interesting. And I know what you're thinking, "Oh, Yuffie, that means you banged, right? You played hide the sausage? You did the horizontal tango? He taught you how to play the skin flute?"

Well. You'll see.

Basically, it started one evening with Rude taking me on a date, as usual.

As the date ended, he started walking me home, as usual.

But he wasn't walking me home, which I realized about halfway through our normally-traveled route taking a random turn into not-the-way-to-Seventh-Heaven land.

"Rudeapotamus, where are we going?" He didn't answer me, just shot me a glance out of the corner of his eye. "Hey! Tell me where we're going, huh? _Tell me_! I need to knowww."

He shrugged, his face betraying nothing, but something told me he was extremely amused. Something about the way his mouth was set, and some signal from the way he was holding his shoulders. I was a Master Rude Reader.

"Fine, if you won't tell me, then I'll just have to guess." I crossed my arms next to him and stuck my nose into the air. "The zoo?"

No reply.

"The Promised Land? Haha, that was a joke. See? You're supposed to laugh." I rolled my eyes when he just continued walking. "The movies? A carnival? An alternate dimension?"

With a snort, Rude said, "Getting warmer."

"Really?"

"No."

"Damn!"

We kept walking, with me jabbering the whole way, and finally we came to a place I recognized. Oooh.

"You're bringing me to your apartment?" I looked at Rude. He shrugged. "What're we gonna do?"

"Watch a movie," he said, shrugging. "Whatever."

"Sounds good."

So Rude took me up, and this time I watched as he procured a key and unlocked the front door. I didn't actually have to dig out my lockpicks. (And for your information, I _did_ have them on me, thank you – a good thief never goes anywhere without her lockpicks. In fact, I even sleep with mine. They get their own pillows and everyth – you know what, there is a line I need to learn to draw where I shouldn't be giving out so much information. I think I just crossed it again.)

Rude's apartment looked pretty much the same. Sparse furniture, even fewer decorations. The essentials, really. I was going to have to spice this place up.

Then I realized something. There was a framed strip of pictures on the wall. They were of me and Rude, most of them consisting of me making funny faces, and one where Rude had seized me and was kissing me rather insistently. I remembered that.

"_Hey, Rude, it's one of those picture booth thingies! You got three gil? Let's go!"_

"_Hm."_

I forgot I had shoved the things on him and told him that he needed a little more _me_ in his life.

"Man, Rude, I thought you would've slept with those under your pillow so that on cold, lonely knights you could take them out and touch yourself at the sight of me."

He was staring at me, mouth slightly agape. I laughed very loudly, throwing my head back and collapsing into a nearby chair. "Oh, man! The look on your face is so priceless! Eesh, Rude, you know I'm just kidding."

He shook his head at me, smiling slightly, and went into the kitchen for a bit. I could hear the sound of glasses clinking and drawers being opened and closed, as well as the sucking sound of the fridge door as it was yanked free of its normal position. Kicking back in Rude's easy chair, I grabbed a remote and clicked the television on, deciding to see how many channels Rude had.

Whoa! The man had like eighty-gabillion channels! Ooh, there was that slasher movie about the man with double personalities killing his girlfriend and then warring with himself about it. I'd seen that one a billion times since it came out, but I still loved it (mm, gratuitous corn syrup gore), so I settled on that right about the time Rude came out of the kitchen with two glasses and a bottle of wine, which he had already opened.

Lifting an eyebrow, I said, "Wow, Rude, I know you want to get into these zesty ninja shorts of mine, but there's no need to get me drunk first. All you gotta do is ask."

For the first time ever, I saw Rude blush. It was slight. It was faint. If I hadn't paid close attention, I wouldn't have seen it at all, but a very pale pink flush crept over his bald head and settled somewhere in his ears.

I laughed again and settled on the couch next to him. He set the glasses on the coffee table and filled them with a rich red wine from the bottle. I gave him a surprised look.

"Wow, Rude, what's the occasion?"

He shrugged. "No occasion."

I took my glass and swirled it like I really knew what I was doing with the wine. Except I never drank wine. But I'm awesome like that so I made it look official as all hell, like I was a wine coin-a-sewer. I sipped and then smacked my lips, savoring it. "Mm, good choice."

Rude coughed a bit. I sighed. "Oh, fine, I don't know half a damn about wine. You caught me." He smirked. "You and that whole 'being perceptive' thing. I can't slip anything by you."

At the sound of a man's anguished scream, Rude looked at the television and said, "What's this?"

"One of my favorite horror flicks. Wanna watch it with me? You too can experience _Duality_, in all its corn syrup glory!" I waved a hand in front of myself grandly. He shrugged and put his arm around me, and I nestled into his side, more comfortable than a chocobo in a feather-mattress store.

You know, the more I drank, the better the wine tasted, really. Is that because wine is alcoholic? I wouldn't know. You tell me. All I know is, it was tasting better, and I was starting to feel kind of tingly and light. And the more I drank, the more I felt like tonight right now would be a _perfect_ opportunity to take advantage of innocent little Rudey-Pants.

"Hey, Ruuuude." I set my empty wineglass down on the table, noticing that the bottle was looking pretty empty. I wasn't the only one sucking it down.

When the big guy looked down at me, I wiggled my eyebrows, seized him by the collar, and pulled my way up his body until I was straddling his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. He seemed content to just watch me for a moment, his eyes a little hazy from the wine (or maybe that was because _my_ eyes were hazy from the wine, I dunno). Lazily, he let his head tilt back as I started sucking noisily on his neck.

In retrospect, that probably wasn't the sexiest of sounds, but hey, when in Rome! Or… you know – when you're drunk!

It didn't take too much effort to get Rude all hot and bothered, especially with the alcohol skipping through his system like a bunch of caffeine-addled moogles. Before long, he was groaning softly and shifting underneath me, his breath hitching every time I nipped him with my teeth. The bit of stubble on his neck rasped against my tongue as I drew it across his jaw. I migrated to his ears and slipped my tongue through a couple of the metal hoops in his ears, toying with them, tugging just enough to be right on the edge of hurting him.

I traveled quickly in a southern direction, unbuttoning his collared shirt as I went. I took some time to show his rather magnificent collar bone some love, and then I scratched my fingers over his nipples. He jerked under my hands, hissing.

When I looked up and met his eyes, he flicked his gaze toward the hall, where his bedroom was located. Hey, man, I could take a hint. Practically skipping – although I think it was more of a run-walk-hop-flail-stagger in my current condition – to his bedroom, it didn't occur to me at all that this might be a bad idea, what with our wine-altered judgment.

After that, all I remember is getting to his bedroom, settling myself on his rather large, comfortable bed, and watching intently as he kissed his way up the length of my body. Sweet scantily-clad Shiva, the man had instinct for this sort of thing. I remember lots of slow kissing, the removal of some articles of clothing and then it all sort of fades to black, with little snippets here and there.

-

When I woke up the next morning, it was… not pretty, to say the least.

First of all, I had a killer hangover. My mouth was about as dry as the inside of a Cait Sith, the sunlight shining in broken pieces through the blinds pierced my eyeballs like the Masamune, and it felt like someone was enthusiastically playing a drum set inside my skull.

"Augh…" An inarticulate sound of disgust was the only thing I could bother with at that point. That "Augh" contained all of my disdain for hangovers, wine, waking up _with_ a hangover, and anything else that might be unfortunate enough to cross my path.

Then there was the fact that I was in someone's bed that was not my own. I had a moment of panic before I realized it was Rude's bed, and the rather meaty arm draped over my waist belonged to baldy himself.

Then I noticed something else.

I was wearing clothes that did not belong to me. Namely, a giant t-shirt that could belong to no one but Rude. (I mean, seriously, the only person as big as Rude is Barret, and if I woke up wearing one of Barret's shirts, then the _universe_ would have some fucking explainin' to do.)

"Mm," Rude murmured. I heard and felt him yawn behind me, and he removed the arm, rolling over. I turned to face him as well.

I croaked, "Why am I in my undies and your shirt?"

He rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes, wincing. Stubble had sprouted on his face, giving him a rather rugged look. I liked it, and I had the faint urge to lick him, but that was stifled by the way I felt like a giant pile of chocobo shit.

"Well. Did we… ?" I left the question hanging in the air, marveling at how awkward I felt, but less because I was embarrassed and more because I couldn't recall. I mean, if we had done the dirty, I would've liked to have been able to look fondly upon it.

Then again, maybe not. What if it sucked? What if Rude was terrible in bed? What if, despite his size, he had a really, really tiny –

"You don't remember?"

"Nope. I remember coming in here, and then nothing else."

"You passed out."

Oh, that sounded terribly sexy. Good going, Yuffie. With my luck, he was right about to whip it out, and bam! Out cold. That's _sure_ to boost the man's self esteem. "Oh, hey, what do you think, Yuffie? Yuffie? Yuffie!"

"I… what?"

"You passed out."

"Oh, fuck. When?" I had my hands over my face, my voice coming out rather muffled.

He cleared his throat. "Got your bra off."

"Oh. I'm… uh… sorry?" I winced at how terrible that sounded.

I realized the bed was shaking a little bit, and when I looked over, Rude was laughing into his hand, eyes crinkled at the corners. He wasn't taking it that hard, I thought.

"'S okay," he said as he calmed himself and rolled out of bed, sauntering toward the showers. He was wearing only his boxer shorts, and if there had been any saliva in my mouth whatsoever, I don't think I would've been able to contain my drool. He shot me a look that was, for Rude, positively smoldering. "We'll try again later."

I looked at the clock next to the bed and realized I had an hour to get ready for work. Ugh, hungover at work. This had been a poor decision on my part.

The sound of the shower coming on made the wheels start creaking to life in my head, laboriously working through the hangover rust. Hmm… try again indeed.

I had had an idea.

So I slipped into the bathroom, which was already beginning to cloud up from steam (apparently Rude liked his showers extra hot), and I stripped down to nothing but the skin I was born in. Man, I'm hot.

Rude was already in the shower, curtain drawn. I was pretty sure he hadn't heard me approach, otherwise he would've asked me what the fuck I was doing.

So I slipped into the shower behind him and nearly got myself clotheslined as he whipped around at the sound of the curtain moving, surprised.

"Whoa, Rude, calm down!" I held up my hands placatingly.

Shockingly enough, I did not feel awkward at all to be naked in front of Rude. Really, it just comes naturally to me, stuff like that. Being the Princess of Wutai instills modesty in you, yes, but you're no stranger to being seen naked by maidservants and the like. Plus, for many years now I've worn pretty much the minimum amount of clothing that's counted as decent by society's standards, so being naked? Really not a big thing.

However, Rude being naked? Was a big thing. A very big thing. Wait. _Wait. _That's not what I meant! That'snotwhatImeant!

Perverts. We got a place for you people where I come from, you know.

Anyway, back to Rude being naked. Which is awesome, by the way. Because I've mentioned that he's muscular about a million times, but you just don't completely understand that until you've seen the man naked (and if you've seen the man naked, I would like to have a word with you about that, sir or madam).

Hot water ran off him in rivulets, cascading over his powerful shoulders, down his chiseled abs, down his strong thighs and shapely, masculine calves. I gaped.

"Well," I said. "The suits hide a _lot_, young man. Why didn't you tell me you were packing such… equipment?"

Rude's mouth twitched, and I swatted him on the chest. "Not like that, you loser!"

He shrugged, looking me up and down appreciatively. I cocked my hip in the cramped space of the shower. "You gonna pass me the soap, or what? My body ain't cleanin' itself, y'know."

He did me one better, and started lathering me up himself.

Needless to say, it got a little heated in that there shower, but I assure you, we didn't get past second base. (Unfortunately.) Not enough time, too uncomfortable. You get the drift.

Rude had to get to work a little earlier than I did, which left me to idle around his apartment by myself before I headed out. He told me to lock the door, gave me a peck on the lips, and made his way out the door.

Now. I'm a snoop. I know this, you know this, everyone knows this. Even Rude knows this. But I think, at that point in time, he hadn't thought ahead very far. Because I didn't even have to snoop to find what I did.

In Rude's bedroom, getting dressed in yesterday's clothes (ew, but I didn't have anything else), I stumbled across something lying on top of his bureau.

It was a photo book.

Nothing special, at first, I thought. Just a book of photos. But then I saw on what pages the book had been opened.

Pictures of Rude with… a woman. They were both smiling, happy, laughing. I could tell the pictures were taken somewhere in Midgar, from the looks of the lighting and all the machinery, and I could swear I saw a support beam for the plate in one of the photographs. In one photo, Rude was blushing as the girl hugged him. In another, they were sharing cotton candy. In another, exchanging gifts. In one, they were kissing.

I felt my stomach drop out.

There weren't many of these photos. Maybe ten or so. But Rude was so obviously happy (and younger, I could tell that much) in them that I felt as if I had been stabbed somewhere in the ribs. Who was this woman? Why did Rude make her so happy? And why had the photo book been left open on those pages?

He had been looking at them, that was why. Looking at them in the past few days or so, I thought. Because those hadn't been there the one other time I had visited Rude's apartment. This photo album had not been on the bureau. (I knew because it was definitely something I would've poked my nose into.)

I called in and told Reeve I was not going to work that day. I was suddenly feeling way too sick to do anything for the WRO, and I definitely wasn't sure if I could stomach seeing Rude in the building that day. Who was she?

And why had he never mentioned her to me before?


	18. Chapter 17

A/N: _Greetings, wonderful readers. I just wanted to let you know that I'm dropping this chapter on your laps before I run off to college orientation for two days. _

_Also, I'm almost done writing this story. I am one chapter away from finishing it, and then you can rest assured that these chapters will be posted for your entertainment. One epilogue away from having it all done!  
_

-

I spent most of that day running around the roofs of buildings in Edge. Which, admittedly, was probably not the safest of actions, but this is the kind of dangerous shit I do when I need to think.

I had to face it. I didn't know who that girl was, and I was jealous. Chelsea. What a dumb name. Who the fuck is named Chelsea anyway, huh? Stupid people, that's who.

Fume fume fume.

And Rude had never told me about anyone named Chelsea before. You'd think if she were important to him, he would've revealed her by now. I mean, we'd been dating for three months now. Why wouldn't he have told me about someone like that?

And I couldn't fool myself – ohhh no. I knew strong feelings when I saw them, and anyone who could put that _look_ in Rude's eyes was someone special to him. Someone very special.

Which could only mean one thing. He had been hiding her from me. He didn't _want_ me to know about this Chelsea woman. For some reason. I mean. I'm his girlfriend, right? He was supposed to trust me, right?

_Generally_, when you _trust someone_, you TELL THEM IMPORTANT THINGS LIKE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS YOU GO ON DATES AND HAVE AWESOME FUN TIMES WITH IN DECEMBER.

Calm. _Calm_, Yuffie.

EXCEPT THEY WERE EXCHANGING GIFTS AND THEY WERE KISSING AND –

Man, I had to stop that before I had an aneurysm. I think the blood vessels in my head were practically punching each other in rage. Tiny fists and everything.

In the end, I just went back to Seventh Heaven and decided to sulk. Except I can't even do that properly. The gods have to be like, "Ha, Yuffie, you're such a dumbass. You _really_ think you're ever going to get personal satisfaction out of life? HAHAHA. Silly mortal. Have some Vincent Valentine!"

I walked into the bar and who was there but my _favorite person ever?_ Vinnie-vin-vincey-vin-o-rama!

Yeah, that was sarcasm.

I walked through the front door and immediately laid eyes on the Red-Caped Crusader talking to Tifa. His back was to me, and I tried to dart back out the way I had come in, but he must've heard the door open and seen Tifa's eyes dart toward me because he turned around.

"Yuffie," he said, his voice smooth and delicious _as usual_. Fuck him and his delicious voice, seriously.

"Oh, Yuffie, we were just talking about you," Tifa said, and there was an undercurrent to her voice that I could not quite identify. It almost sounded… cautious?

"Really," I deadpanned. Somehow, I was not surprised. Somehow, I knew this was coming. It had been coming for a while, I think. "Do tell."

Tifa's eyes glimmered with something. A warning, I think. She sounded a bit anxious as she said, "I think I should leave the two of you alone for a while. Vincent needs to talk to you, Yuffie. Isn't that right, Vincent?"

Looking back, I think she was trying to warn me not to do anything stupid to fuck my entire life up. Too bad that was inevitable 'cause I'm Yuffie.

Tifa left the room, casting me one last concerned glance, and Vincent stood. "Yuffie, we must talk."

"No kidding, Gunsmoke." I couldn't figure out what to do with myself. Stand or sit? Lean against the wall? No. Too casual. Just stand there with my arms at my side, limp? No, too weird. Too zombie-like. Crossing my arms. No. Uh.

Vincent was staring as I fidgeted like a cracked-out Funny Face.

"Okay, Vincent, what is it we need to talk about?"

"Things are not... right."

I stared at him impassively.

"Between you and I." He was very still as he spoke, and I could tell this was hard for him. Hell, I know I was _making_ this hard on him, and yet I continued to be a douche about it.

"Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner," I said, voice low. Something flashed over his face then – pain? Vincent Valentine was feeling some sort of emotional pain about _me?_

"I have done wrong by you, Yuffie," he continued, "and I wish to apologize sincerely for that. You were – _are_ – my friend, and I wish to ease the tension between us."

"Are you really sorry, or are you just trying to make things easier?" How's _that_ for perceptive!

He crossed the distance between us, getting close enough to me that it was almost uncomfortable, looking me in the eye. "Yuffie, I have come to understand that for a long time, you had romantic feelings toward me, and you believed that I returned those feelings. For that, I am sorry."

I sighed and looked away. "Thank you, Vincent."

"But."

I looked up, eyebrows raised. There was more?

"Maybe now is not the best time, but I know of no other way to do this. I feel I owe it to you, for all the suffering I have caused, to tell you that I _did_ return your affections. You were not mistaken in those beliefs, Yuffie."

I stood there, stunned. _How_ could he do this to me? Why? Why tell me this now, when I was involved with Rude? Why tell me this when I was really serious with the big guy, when I was starting to wonder if my feelings were of the deeper variety?

Then it hit me. Because – and here is the plain and simple truth – Vincent Valentine is a fucking idiot.

Not an idiot in the sense that his IQ is below 80 or anything like that, folks. No, Vincent Valentine is an idiot when it comes to people. A normal person – a rational person who wanted to spare my feelings and my sanity – would have kept that to himself, would never have told me that at such a time like this. But Vincent, somewhere in his idiot brain, thought it would help ease my mind knowing that I wasn't the one in the wrong the whole time. He hadn't told me that to make me feel _worse_ or to try to hurt my relationship with Rude. He thought it might help me recover and make things better between us.

He had told me that because he was a good friend, and he had good intentions, however stupid they might be.

"Yuffie?" My name was a question.

I couldn't help it. Everything that had happened – being tired, the hangover that had taken too long to wear off, discovering those pictures, and _now this?_ Bullshit!

I exploded.

Not literally. That's yucky. I wouldn't do that in Tifa's bar anyway. Poor girl would be left cleaning bits of me out of the cracks in the floorboards. What I mean is I just… had to let it all go. And it was either murder Vincent on the spot or burst into tears.

And since I didn't feel like killing the guy who was making a stupidly honest attempt at apologizing to me, I just started to cry. And I'm talking _whoa_ on the crying front, people. Explosive tears of rage and hurt and frustration. Not just tears either. Snot too. I bet this was, like, the most attractive thing ever. I'm surprised Tifa's People I Love In Distress Signal didn't go off and send her running in here with eight tons of tissues and some chocolate to ease the blues, such was the force of my tears. If there was a scale for tears – okay, you get the point.

And to my surprise, instead of standing there like the colossal idiot he was, Vincent actually grabbed me and held me rather gently in his arms. Like the colossal idiot he was. _Why couldn't he have just stood there?_ Ugh, Vincent! Stop making the effort! It turns everything to shit, you dork!

I couldn't help myself at that point. There was no stopping it. The floodgates were open. I just bawled into his musty old cape for a good five minutes, sobbing and rocking and crying it all out of my system. For his part, he tried to do something besides be his lame old self. He rubbed my back and said, "It'll be all right," _really_ awkwardly a couple of times.

When I was done, I used his cape to wipe my face. Good on him for not wincing or snatching it away. Not that it would've mattered any, I mean, have you _seen_ that grody old thing?

He still had one arm around me as he used his human hand to tilt my chin up and look at my face. "Do you… feel better now?" He seemed to savor the words, as if he wasn't sure they were the right ones. Oh, Vincent.

I shrugged. "I guess. Um… sorry about that."

"It is… nothing. That's what friends are for."

I nodded, feeling my eyes sting a little bit again. He said, "Please don't cry anymore, Yuffie. Not on my account."

And then he was looking at me. Not just looking at me, but _looking_ at me. Funny weirdy. Wait, I recognized that look. And his face was getting closer to mine, and – oh, no. No no. I did not need this right now. Vincent Valentine was about to kiss me, and that was the last thing I needed and –

That was the last thing I _wanted_. Suddenly I realized that I didn't _want_ Vincent anymore. The only person I could think of while depositing mucus and angst all over Vincent was a certain bald, bespectacled ex-Turk. And if that didn't tell me the truth, I don't know what would have.

But, as fate – or the fucking asshole gods (yeah, I know it's you Da Chao, you bastard – er, bastards) – would have it, my life was about to spiral out of control. Yay! Because guess who walked in right at the moment I was about to dodge away from Vincent's unwanted lips? Why, Rude, of course! Who else but the last person who needed to witness something like this! (Fuck you, Leviathan. Stop laughing.)

"Yuffie?" I heard him call as he entered Seventh Heaven. I sprang away from Vincent as fast as I could, but it was too late. He had already seen.

The look on his face. Oh, gods. It was awful. It was the most heart-breaking thing I have ever seen in my life. I have never felt that terrible. It was like I took a barrel of starving kittens, soaked them in gasoline, lit them on fire, and then put them out by throwing them in a freezing river.

"Rude!" I gasped. "Wait, I – "

His face closed off, and he turned around and walked right back out the door, slamming it shut.

Something inside me cracked, I think.

"Fuck," I said, fisting my hands in my hair. "_Fuck_."

Vincent lifted a hand as if to touch me, then dropped it again. "I am so sorry, Yuffie," he said.

"Me too, Vincent. Me too."

-

After assuring Vincent for the millionth time that it wasn't his fault – even though it totally was but he couldn't have known and I couldn't be mad at him and – I went up to my room. One part of me was screaming at me to go after Rude, and another part of me told me to give him time.

Then I said fuck that, and I tried to call him. No answer. Voice mail.

And that was the routine for the day. Voice mail. Voice mail. Voice mail.

-

And there you have it. I suck at men.

The princess had her chance, and she screwed it all up until it was one giant, steaming mess of Adamantoise intestines with a side of bullshit.

I mean, seriously. It was going _so well_, and then Vincent has to come back into my life, and if I hadn't had feelings for the guy for so long, if I could've just _gotten over it_, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

Why do I ever think it'll work out between guys like Rude or Vincent with me anyway? Me and my big mouth. How could anyone like them ever tolerate anyone like me? It's just yak yak yak twenty-four-seven, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. Stupid Yuffie.

And so the stupid princess was left all on her own because she has a big, fat honkin' mouth and can't do anything right. Ever. And the gods hated her. Even though she was totally going to rule their chosen country one day, they wanted to be bastards and make her life hell.

Or maybe she made her own life hell.

Worst. Princess. _Ever_.


	19. Chapter 18

Maybe you thought that would be the end, eh? You thought that after I fucked everything up, it would be all over.

Well. Let me tell you what, ladies and germs, I thought so too. But that is not the case. That is not the case _at all_. In fact, I am extremely disappointed in all of you for thinking otherwise. I am _The Great Ninja Yuffie_ here, people. I am so great, even the word "The" is capitalized in that title. People don't just tack it on there, sheesh.

The saga continues, in full, glorious color, for your entertainment!

It's been two weeks since I last wrote this. Two whole weeks. Maybe I should start from where I left off.

-

Voice mails. I was starting to hate them.

Then I started to get angry. I mean, seriously. I knew it looked _really_ bad, but why the hell wasn't he picking up his phone? It wasn't like Rude to be this childish, it really wasn't. This was more like something Cid would do if Shera wasn't paying him enough attention.

On the second day of him not picking up the phone, I realized I hadn't seen him at work. I mean, okay, the WRO building _is_ really big, but come on! You gotta bump into a person occasionally. (Especially if you're a ninja who happens to be _trying_ to "bump" into that person. I mean, how many air vents and lockers did I had to crawl around in before I caught sight of the guy? Seriously, I was tired of picking dust bunnies out of my shorts.)

So I resorted to… well. My last resort.

"Reeve, I need to speak to Rude. Where is he."

"Why?"

I nearly throttled him. Him and his stupid… his stupid… beard! And his stupid cat! "I just need to know."

"Can't you call him?"

"He's not picking up his phone. He hasn't for two days now."

At this, Reeve's eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

"Yeah…" And it killed me to have to admit this to Reeve, but he was a friend, no matter how much we antagonized each other. "We kinda had a fight."

Reeve was frowning intensely, though, and I didn't think it was at my admission of having a fight with Rude. "You haven't heard from him in two days? That's funny… he didn't report in to me this morning, but I didn't think anything of it."

"Report in to you?"

"I gave him a mission," he said. "Him being a field agent and all."

Uh-oh. "And he hasn't reported to you today?"

"No."

"You sent him on a solo run?"

"Yes. It wasn't supposed to be anything major."

"What was it?"

"He was supposed to be inspecting the Junon Correctional Facility to make sure everything was running smoothly. It's just a routine check up."

The Junon Correctional Facility. The Junon Correctional Facility. Why did that ring a massive bell? Alarms were going off in my head. Something was wrong with that name. Something was –

"Reeve," I gasped. "Reeve, do you remember the woman we arrested a few months ago? The crime lord's partner and girlfriend?"

Reeve nodded suddenly. "Risa Vetter. I believe that was her name. Didn't she fuck you up something good?"

"Yes. Where was she being held?"

His eyes widened. "The Junon Correctional Facility."

"And Rude killed her boyfriend, even if it was an accident," I said.

"Oh, no." Reeve's face had gone white.

"_Shit_."

-

And shit was just the right word for it, folks, yesiree. Because we were in a lot of it.

From what I had seen of Miss Risa Vetter in the short time we had come to know each other, in that underground facility – with me screaming and squirming in a poison-induced stupor – I had discovered that she was, to put it bluntly, one crazy-ass bitch.

Surely you're saying right now, "Yuffie, we already know that. I mean, you told us what she did. Not hard to figure out that she's off her chump." Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am making a point here. She's crazy. Which means she'll do _anything_. And when Reeve told me that Rude had gone to inspect the Junon Correctional Facility, where she was being held, I knew something bad had happened. I just knew it.

Something told me that Risa would be just the kind of insane-o to take revenge for her dead boyfriend by killing someone else's boyfriend.

So I told Reeve to give me the nearest aircraft lickety-split.

Reeve wanted to send a whole team for this, and I agreed that would probably be the best idea. When he called the airbase outside of Edge, however, he discovered that there was nothing left in the hangar today except a few small, two-person deals. The rest were either out on runs or being repaired and wouldn't be ready to go again for another few hours.

I couldn't wait another few hours. It was quite likely that Rude's life was in danger.

So I called the first person I could think of, the best man for this job. As much as I didn't want to, as much as he got on my nerves, he was – strangely enough – a friend, of sorts. And he was the closest pal Rude had (besides me of course).

I flipped my cell phone open and called Reno.

"Reno." His voice coming through the phone was like music to my ears in that moment.

"Reno, it's Yuffie, and we've got a problem."

I could almost hear his raised eyebrows. "What do you need?"

"Get your ass to the aircraft hangar. Rude's in trouble. We think he ran into a harpy in Junon."

"A harpy?"

"Just go!"

"Roger that. I'll get one of those puppies cranked up and ready to go."

"Yuffie," Reeve said, "I know there's no use telling you to wait until we can send back-up with you, so good luck."

"Thanks, Reeve," I said.

"I'll phone for back-up anyway, though," he said. "Maybe they'll arrive on time to be of some use."

"You're the best boss ever, just so you know."

"If I was the best boss ever, this wouldn't have happened," he said, solemn.

I waved a hand. "We all make mistakes, man. Now it's just up to me to clean up after this one."

"Stay in contact."

"See ya!"

-

One Conformer, sixteen throwing stars, and four magic materia later, I was in the hangar, meeting up with Reno.

"'Ey, Princess," he greeted me from the front seat of a little puddle-jumper-sized plane. He had his goggles on, and the craft was cranked and humming.

"One warning," I said as I swung into the back seat. "If I start to throw up, I'll make sure it's around the back so it doesn't somehow get on you. Just ignore it."

"Airsickness?"

"Everything sickness, really. And nothing cures it except knocking myself out with tranquilizers, which I can't afford to do right now. I've gotta be as alert as possible for this."

"Understandable. Did you bring goggles?" I nodded and procured them, securing them to my face. This would help with the wind. I had also brought a leather jacket and gloves. No matter how hot it was on the ground, it was still chilly up in the air.

"All right, let's get this bad-boy movin'," he said. "And Yuffie?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for calling me."

"No problem. If Rude wanted anyone saving his ass, it would probably be you."

"And you."

"I dunno about that."

The engine gave a roar as Reno wheeled the plane toward the doors and really started kicking it into gear. "Whaddaya mean?"

"We sorta had a fight. Ish. I dunno, he walked in on me and Vincent looking very compromising – " By now I was shouting over the din. " – and I tried to tell him it wasn't what it looked like – "

"_Was_ it what it looked like?" Reno asked, pushing the plane into high gear. We were coasting along the runway.

"No, it totally wasn't! Actually, Vincent was trying to kiss me, and I was trying to get away, and Rude just walked in at the wrong moment!"

"_Vincent_ was trying to _kiss you?_"

"Yeah, I know, right? Apparently, I wasn't wrong all that time! He really did have feelings for me. Which he chose to tell me right there. So I started to cry 'cause – "

"You cried over that?"

"Well. Not just that. I found some pictures of Rude and some chick named Chelsea – "

"Oh, Chelsea? That was a _long_ time ago," Reno said.

By this point, we were taking off, and the roar of the engines was getting too loud for me to really tell what was going on in the conversation, so with those words echoing in my ears, the ride lapsed into silence. That was a long time ago? Blargh! I was burning with curiosity that just hadn't been satisfied no matter how long I thought about the problem.

About an hour-and-a-half later, Reno and I landed at the Junon airstrip, Reno communicating with their tower the entire time. I had managed to throw up over the side of the plane only once, so that was convenient. Luckily, we were heading over uninhabited plains at the time, so the most that probably got hit were some unfortunate Spear Beaks.

As Reno and I got into a WRO-commissioned car and directed the driver to the Junon Correctional Facility on the double, I said, "So, tell me about Chelsea."

"Nope," Reno replied.

"What?" I glared. "Why not?"

"That's for Rude to tell you, not me. So you can stop giving me that look and get over whatever bout of jealousy you're sufferin' from, Princess, 'cause the man's head over heels for you."

I gaped, flabbergasted. "You… really? Wait." I squinted. "How do you know that?"

He shrugged. "I can just tell. I'm his best friend, remember? I just know these things."

Something inside me loosened at that, something I hadn't known was there.

The Junon Correctional Facility wasn't far from the airbase, so it didn't take us long to arrive. When we pulled up, I noticed that there were a _lot_ of guards standing around looking threatening. They were armed to the teeth, large guns in all their hands, forbidding expressions, body armor, everything. Hell, some of them even had _beards_.

"What the fuck?"

I approached the guards at the gate. "What's going on here, officer?"

When they gave me incredulous looks, I rolled my eyes and flashed them my WRO ID. If people didn't recognize me by face, they sure as hell recognized the WRO and the name Yuffie Kisaragi. The WRO didn't technically own the jail, but we were pretty much the Good Guys of the World. People respected us and encouraged our efforts.

They immediately opened up to me. The first one, a large man with beady eyes, answered my question. "There's been an escape, ma'am. We're on lockdown."

My eyes narrowed. Reno shifted beside me, leaning forward, his hands nonchalantly in his pockets. "Oh, yeah? Who gave you the slip?"

The smaller guard, this one with a bit of a moustache going on, piped up. "And who are _you?_"

Reno sighed and dug out his badge. Not many people knew of Reno or anyone specific to the Turks, but the WRO was a good push. Plus he was with me. I've saved the world about eight trillion times, I mean, really.

They nodded at him and continued. "We had an inmate break out shortly after one of yours came to inspect the place."

I rubbed my temples, making a futile attempt to soothe my own nerves. "Don't tell me," I said. "The inmate's name is Risa Vetter."

Moustachio looked surprised. "How did you know that?"

"We have reason to believe," Reno said, for once business-like instead of drawling and irritating, "that Risa Vetter has kidnapped the man who came to inspect this facility. His name is Rude."

Their eyes widened at the same time.

I picked up where Reno had left off. "When was the last time Rude was seen here, gentlemen?"

"Yesterday evening, ma'am."

"Come to think of it," Squinty said, "Miss Vetter escaped while Rude was here. Or a little after."

Reno scratched his chin. "How did she bust out? This place is pretty high security."

Moustachio shook his head. "One of our rookies got too close to her at lights out, we think. We found him out cold in her cell. She must have taken his keys."

"Somehow, she slipped out under our noses."

"The warden is _not_ pleased."

"Well, boys," I said. "Let me just tell you that this woman is not your average inmate. Of course, none of these people are, but she's… something else."

"That's one way to put it," Squinty muttered.

"She's a freakin' monster."

Reno interrupted. "I assume you have a task force out searching for her?"

"That's right. One of our best teams."

I turned to Reno. "Okay, not that I'm not a fan of the number one task force in Junon or anything, but Reno, I think you and I need to start searching. Maybe we'll have better luck."

"Because we know Rude better?"

"Maybe. I was thinking more along the lines of because that bitch tortured me for hours back in Edge, and I know a little about her from when we had tags on Damien West."

"Rude told me something about that whole thing. Didn't he accidentally kill Damien?"

I nodded. "Yeah, in the scuffle. He didn't really mean to shoot the guy. It just sort of happened."

By that point, I had waved to the guards and we were walking toward the car.

"Okay, so how do we go about this?"

I shrugged. "Figure the best way to do it is to tell the driver to just cruise around, and if we see a likely place, we'll stop and inspect."

"Gotta start somewhere, I guess."

So that's what we did. And I went into every old-fashioned villain hideout I could think of. We searched for two hours with no sign of anything suspicious or crazy-poisonous-bitch-lady-ish. Or anything tall, dark, and bald-ish either.

That's when we came to a warehouse used for air and sea shipments. It didn't look like it was currently being used. And I said to myself, "Yuffie, there is no goddamn way she has holed up in anything as cliché as this. The only thing better would be a lair in a volcano."

Oh, was I wrong or was I _wrong_.

Reno looked at me. I looked at Reno. The driver saw in the rearview mirror and came to a halt. (The driver was a middle-aged lady named Lucinda. She had a smoker's rasp and crows' feet around her eyes, and she had two kids, boys, named Ridge and Tripp. We had conversed a great deal over the past two hours, me trying to ease my anxiety for Rude by getting to know the driver. Good gods, I am lame. But I sure liked the driver!)

"You've gotta be shittin' me. You really think she's in a place like this?"

"Why not? We won't know unless we check, man."

"Point," he said.

The front door had a padlock on it, but the padlock was open. Suspicious.

"Okay," I said, hand on the doorknob. "You know the drill."

The drill was to be as quiet as freakin' possible. We had to sneak up. If Risa _was_ in there with Rude, we would need to get to him before she could make a move.

The first thing I noticed about the place was that it was dark. The few, high windows it had were covered in grime, and the little sunlight there was on an overcast day like today was barely breaking through the crud.

We entered. There were crates and boxes stacked from the floor to the extremely high ceiling, a veritable labyrinth of goods. My first thought was that this could either work to our advantage or our disadvantage.

There were two paths in front of us. One to the left, one to the right. I signaled to Reno that I thought we ought to go to the right. He flicked a glance to the left, then shrugged and followed cautiously after me. We were both paying close attention to the concrete floor below us as our eyes adjusted. We were trying not to step on anything that might create a loud noise. I saw Reno had his riot prod out, and there was a faint glow about his arm as materia activated, ready to be commanded.

The place seemed to go on forever in the dark. I didn't really know how long we were walking because it seemed endless. It was so quiet, I thought someone might be able to hear our breathing.

Then the silence was broken. A voice came from some direction to our right, over a mountain of packing crates.

"Well, well," Risa cooed, "you're finally here. I didn't expect you to take a whole day. Slow, Yuffie Kisaragi. Very slow."


	20. Chapter 19

My heart must have skipped a beat, it was pounding so hard.

I looked at Reno, and he shook his head at me. I knew he didn't want me to give away our position. There was a chance Risa already knew where we were, since she was aware we were in the building. Better safe than sorry, though.

We crept along at a snail's pace, and soon enough, she started talking again. You see, people like Risa Vetter can't stand not to hear the sound of their own voices. It's one of those I'm a Bad Guy things. Just like I can't stand not to kick ass. It's one of those Yuffie Kisaragi things.

Especially when you kidnap my boyfriend.

"I know you're in here, Kisaragi. I saw the light when you came in."

I still didn't reply. I could imagine Reno swearing in his head. Still, there had been no avoiding that.

"Don't worry. Your boyfriend's alive. For now anyway. I want you to watch him suffer first. The way I watched Damien die when Rude here shot him."

My blood boiled. I was surprised steam didn't come out of my ears. I wanted to scream, "It was _your_ fault Damien was killed! He got in the way of a bullet meant for you!" But I can have self control. _Sometimes_. I gritted my teeth so hard it actually hurt.

I swore in that moment that if she had laid a hand on Rude – and if I knew her even a little bit, she probably had – I would make it my personal mission to pay her back threefold.

"You know, I know where you are."

I strained to see where she might be, to maybe catch a glimpse of her in the darkness.

"You took a right when you came in. I saw the glow of your materia."

Damn. There was no use concealing our position now. I looked at Reno. He nodded.

"Fuck you, lady," I called. She laughed, which just enraged me.

No. No. I had to keep calm. For Rude's sake. Getting angry would just be distracting and dull my reaction-time.

"If you've hurt a nonexistent hair on his bald head, you harpy – "

"Oh, don't worry about that. I've showed him hospitality. In my own special way. You remember my taste for poison, don't you, Kisaragi?" she asked sweetly.

She had poisoned Rude. She had done something to Rude. Immediately, goosebumps rose on my arms at the memory of the excruciating amounts of pain she had put me through.

"You just forfeited me showing any kind of restraint against you."

This time, there was no answer. Reno and I stopped walking, tense. She was about to make a move. I wasn't sure what, but she was about to make it.

Then the hair rose on my arms again. Before I could think, I somersaulted out of the way, and a third level bolt spell descended from the sky above me, blinding in its intensity.

I wondered where she had acquired materia, but there was no telling in Junon. The crime rate in a city this big, with this much traffic, was pretty high, despite our best efforts. She could have picked it up from any number of home-sellers trying to make a quick buck off of pilfered goods.

Fortunately, Risa hadn't known I had brought Reno with me. _Un_fortunately, he was following behind me very closely, and didn't have time to get out of the way. The bolt hit him and sent him sprawling, wracked with spasms. He would be down for a while. You didn't take lightning to your body and stand up immediately afterward.

I gasped quietly when I heard him let out a choked gurgling noise. Damn, Reno was tough. Any normal man would've screamed. And probably gone into cardiac arrest. But he's a Turk. And mako enhanced.

(I wish I had a constitution like that. Eighty beers? NO PROBLEM.)

Checking his vitals, I ascertained that he was, in fact, still alive. His heart was going strong, and he hadn't had a seizure yet. He was just unconscious. Fine. I would have to do this myself, knocked-out-Reno be damned.

Note to self: crazy-ass had herself some materia. Well. That was fine. I had _me_ some materia too. And I was not afraid to use it, property damage or no property damage.

I fingered the Leviathan materia that went with me no matter where I was, no matter what I was doing.

As much as I called the gods heartless bastards born from the union of a syphilitic prostitute and a brain-dead cow, they were still _my_ gods, and there was no way I was going to forfeit any help they would offer me in a tight spot. And besides, problems or not, they had given me Rude. I would never, ever forget that.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are, Kisaragi. I know you're still here somewhere. One person screamed, another kept walking. I can hear you. Is it you, Kisaragi? Or are you out cold? Is the one still standing someone else?"

I continued creeping along, linking my spirit energy with my materia. They shone faintly, and I shook off any worries I had about that. Risa knew where I was already anyway.

The question was: where was Rude?

"Who'd Kisaragi bring with her, anyway? Had to be someone special. Someone else from the WRO, probably."

The more that fucker talked, the more I was ready to kick her ass.

Something tickled the back of my mind, some innate magic sense, and I tucked and rolled once more as a pillar of flames rose from where I had been standing. So the cuckoo bird had a bolt _and_ a fire materia. There was no telling what else she was packing.

It was time to act. My eyes had adjusted again since the flash of the lightning, and I knew I had to do _something_.

Quickly, I levered myself up onto some of the adjacent crates. Most of the piles were like pyramids, with lots of nifty handholds and places to stand or crouch. Taking a deep breath and praying to all my gods that I would not – oh, Leviathan please, just this once have mercy – trip or something stupid like that, I started to _run_ up the mountain of crates.

To give you some perspective, these stacks had to be nearly twenty feet tall at times. That was a long way to go in the dark.

"I see you, Kisaragi. And I know it's you."

As fast as I could, I harnessed the power of one of my materia, and I launched it blindly in the direction of her voice. I heard the crackle of an ice spell, saw the faint blue glow of the magic, but I was not rewarded with a hit. I could hear her chuckle in the silence afterward.

"I know where you are, Kisaragi."

I resisted the urge to swear (no need to alert her to my position any more than that spell already had) and swung myself out of the way onto a bunch of crates. I felt a few rough wooden edges scrape my bare midriff. That stung.

"Tick tock, Kisaragi. Can you find me? Those spells are just driving you toward me."

A pause.

"And where you find me, you'll find your beloved."

I _almost_ snorted. Beloved? Not only was this lady off her rocker, but she was also a sissy of epic proportions.

She was going to pay so goddamn hard, her ancestors would feel it. And where I come from, we believe in Your Ancestors Feeling It.

I had an idea. It was going to involve a bolt materia and a whole lot of luck.

I waited for her to speak again and hoped to the high heavens that she wasn't too close to Rude at the moment.

Sure enough, the idiot talked. She just couldn't resist hearing the sound of her own stupid voice. "You really don't care too much about your man here, do you?"

At that moment, I channeled a bolt spell in her direction. I knew where she was, I just didn't know the exact position. At the same time, I peeked around the corner of a tower of boxes, squinting hard. I was rewarded with a glimpse of her and something else, huddled on the ground.

Unfortunately for me, she saw me as well. I knew this because her eyes met mine in the split second of visual clarity. She knew I was close now, and whatever it was she wanted me to witness was about to happen.

She cast a fire spell, but not at me. She cast it around herself, lighting the area up. Sure enough, that heap on the floor next to her was Rude. And were those stains _blood_? She was dead meat. _I would kill her_.

That's when I noticed the firelight was glinting off a long, wicked-looking syringe in her hands. Some sort of liquid glistened inside it. She grinned at me.

Gritting my teeth so hard it hurt, I took a flying leap in that one moment of pause. She didn't react fast enough – too inexperienced with my Super Ninja Ways. My feet hit her straight in the chest, knocking the wind out of her with a _whoosh_ and sending her into the boxes. She hit those too, crying out, and the needle skittered toward the flames around us.

I raised a leg to stomp on her ugly face, and she grabbed my other ankle and wrenched. Dumb move, Yuffie. I tried to catch my balance and failed, twisting to catch myself with my hands. The impact on the concrete jarred through me, and I nearly bit my tongue.

Risa kicked me one good time in the stomach, crawling backward toward the syringe. Rude made some sort of noise, and I was distracted, my gaze flicking to him as my eyes watered and I tried not to gag at the blow to my gut.

Risa had grabbed the needle, and was standing. I hopped to my feet as she ran toward Rude, trying to cut her off. When I leveled a punch at her face, she raised the needle, and I dodged.

"Where the _hell_ do you get off, lady?" I snarled, making a grab for her wrists. No dice.

I tried a different tactic, backflipping away and sending a few throwing stars at her. She was rather quick, dodging two. The last one hit her, though, embedding itself into her ankle. She squealed with pain.

Her eyes glittered with malice as we stood on either side of Rude's prone body, each a few feet away, assessing each other. Carefully watching me for any movement, she bent down and wrenched the throwing star out of her leg, grunting as she did so. I raised my eyebrows, impressed despite myself at her tolerance for pain

She started to laugh. Before I could ask what the hell she was doing, she made a last desperate lunge for Rude.

And she made it.

Risa let out a triumphant, "Hah!" as the needle met the flesh on Rude's arm. I scrabbled toward her, but it was too late. The plunger descended, and whatever fluid was in the syringe dispersed into Rude's bloodstream. Rude's back arched to a terrible, agonized angle, and a gurgling cry squeezed out of his throat.

Fury exploded inside of me, a rage so hot that I actually screamed. "_NO!_"

Before I could activate my materia or anything, though, the winds of a summon wrenched through the air, more powerful than any I had felt before. Worse than the feeling I got from the Knights of the Round.

And Leviathan ripped himself into existence and charged Risa Vetter with a roar that shook the warehouse to its foundations. A wave lifted, slamming her against the side of the building with overwhelming force. Leviathan roared, an otherworldly scream that actually hurt my ears, and slammed her into the steel walls once more, teeth tearing into her.

I was watching this with one eye and watching Rude with the other. While Leviathan's fury, courtesy of _my_ fury, was ending Risa Vetter's life, a smaller wave was enfolding Rude, glowing with a pure white light. Rude's limp body coasted over to me on the crest of the wave, and I caught him, lowering him gently to the crates below my feet.

Before my astonished eyes, his wounds shimmered and closed over, and in those few moments before all evidence of Risa's cruelty disappeared, I saw that she had really done a number on the poor guy.

But had the poison been destroyed? He had stopped convulsing with pain, if that was any indicator.

I knelt, slapping his face gently to see if he was conscious enough to recognize me.

"Rude," I murmured. "Rude, you're gonna be okay. It's me, Yuffie. And Reno's here somewhere. We came to get you away from that crazy bitch. Can you hear me, Rude?"

I cradled his bald head in my lap, stroking his face as gently as I could. He croaked my name. "Yuffie…?"

"I'm here now, big guy. She won't be touching you again. _Ever_ again," I said, eyeing the mess that used to be Risa. There was a body somewhere in that pile. I wasn't exactly sure how we were going to smooth this over with the authorities, but, er… self-defense?

(_Young lady, how do you explain yourself?_

_Um. I defended myself. With… a giant water-dragon.)_

The pile that I thought was dead actually groaned and then fell still. Damn, she was still alive? Oh, well, at least I wouldn't be tried for a murderer.

Fuck if I was gonna help her any time soon, though.

"Hey, wha's goin' on? Fuck, what happened?"

Reno was awake.

Rude chuckled weakly. That white glow was still enveloping him. It was fading quickly, though, and I could tell he was getting stronger.

Ten minutes later, I walked out supporting Rude – he actually didn't need it very much. Leviathan's healing glow had really done the trick for ol' Rude-Man. Reno was limping along (apparently, the lightning had got him in the leg) to his other side, and guess what!

We got outside just in time for the authorities to arrive. Along with a news van. Apparently Leviathan had made quite a _splash_.

OH COME ON IT WAS TOO EASY.

Anyway, we managed to duck out under the pretense that Rude and Reno (and Risa, if anyone was feeling charitable) needed medical attention, and by the time we got away from the press and the hospital, AVALANCHE had already arrived in the _Shera_ to pick us up and whisk us away from the tension.

Man, it was great to have friends.

More next time, folks.


	21. Chapter 20

A/N: _Okay, readers, here is the final author note for The Strong, Silent Type._

_I sincerely hope you have enjoyed the read so far. If you didn't, let me know what sucked so I can improve. If you laughed, I'm glad I could bring a smile to your face. If I made this crack pairing a little more plausible to a nonbeliever, let me know. It'll brighten my day. Thanks to all my reviewers. You are all appreciated.  
_

_Many thanks go to the best beta in the world, VulcanElf. She came on board this fic when it was 20,000 words long, and I sent it to her for a read to see what she thought. She sent it back to me covered in red (and blue for stuff she liked thank god). I was surprised and later, elated. This was our first bonding expedition, and I look forward to many more projects with VulcanElf on board. Thanks, doll._

_Thanks to Mengde for being awesome. As usual. Freak._

_And a special shout-out to S. Zix for her thoughtful comments left on chapter twenty. You're awesome._

_One last comment, my faithful readers: **This is not the end of Yuffie and Rude. You haven't seen the last of this pairing from me. You haven't seen the last of this continuity from me, either. Fear it. ;D**  
_

-

So in a whirlwind of events, almost quicker than I could comprehend, me and Rude were home again. Risa Vetter was recovering slowly in the hospital – and was soon to be tried for attempted murder and a _lot_ of other things, and then put away for a real long time in an even smaller, more isolated cell than before.

Which meant it was time to talk. It hadn't even been a day since the events, but it was time to get some things out of the way.

And talk we did. For hours and hours. About _everything_. The first thing I did was explain to Rude that what he had seen was not what it looked like. It helped that Vincent came to apologize personally.

The scene went something like this. Rude and I were in my room at Seventh Heaven, with him sort of resting after his ordeal. He was mostly recovered, what with the whole Leviathan's magical healing powers that I hadn't known it had.

(Turns out that Leviathan was responding to my insane rage and concern for someone I cared about by manifesting himself without being called and then carrying out the necessary actions to save a loved one. According to Godo – who explained this to me via phone when he called to ask why I was being seen all over the television for something _new_ – this happened once in a while with the owners of the Leviathan materia. Yay, infodump!)

Rude and I were talking, when there was a knock on the door. I opened it, revealing none other than my (re)new buddy Vincent Valentine.

"Hey, Vincent," I said. "What do ya need?"

He cleared his throat and stepped into the room as I moved out of the way. In a gesture that sort of shocked me (and sort of didn't I mean god it's _Vincent_, he's just the kind of old and musty that this sort of thing seems natural to him), he actually _bowed_ to Rude. The way people in Wutai would. Highly respectful.

"Mr. Rude, I apologize for anything you might have gotten the wrong impression of in these past few days. The scene you happened upon was entirely innocent, I assure you, and it was my fault that it was initiated at all."

Whoa. What the hell was Rude going to say? I braced myself.

Rude actually smiled a little. "Yuffie explained it. It's fine."

"My sincerest, deepest apologies for ever having caused trouble between the two of you."

"Don't worry about it, Valentine," Rude said. "Really. Water under the bridge."

And for Rude, that just warmed my heart. I couldn't help it, I actually teared up a little. Turning away, I rubbed my eyes.

"Are you crying?" Rude asked. He was incredulous.

"No! I got somethin' in my eye, dammit! Shut up and keep being awesome."

Vincent and Rude snorted at the same time. That was it.

"Okay, as much as this has been great," I said, shuffling Vincent toward the door, "I have a sick boyfriend to tend to, and honestly, this whole potential-best-friends doing-things-at-the-same-time stuff is weirding me out. I'll see you later, okay, Vinnie?"

That was the first time I had called him by my nickname for him in a long time. Something in him softened, and he nodded. "Thank you, Yuffie."

"No, Vince." I smiled. "Thank _you_."

When he was gone, I turned to Rude, took a deep breath, and said, "Who was Chelsea?"

His gaze flicked to somewhere over my shoulder, looking distant. "How did you…?"

"I saw the photo album. You left it open on that page."

"Snoop."

I crossed my arms. "You left it out!"

He shrugged. "You're right."

"Who was she?"

He looked down at his hands in his lap. "Someone I cared about a great deal."

Softly, I said, "Tell me about her, Rude."

He patted the covers next to him, and I curled up there, nuzzled into his side. Then Uncle Rudey told me a story.

Back before Barret's sect of AVALANCHE rolled around, when Rude was in the Turks, there was a young, pretty new Turk named Chelsea. She was a good Turk, did her job well, and she and Rude got to know each other and eventually came to have certain… _feelings_ for each other. (Hm. Must tamp down that irrational surge of jealousy.)

They were "together" for about a month before it was revealed that Chelsea was actually a spy for a group of vigilantes calling themselves AVALANCHE. But before anyone could catch her and prosecute her, she left AVALANCHE, with the message that her feelings for Rude were too great to work against Shinra anymore. She disappeared off the map, and she said one day she hoped she and Rude could meet in the next life.

(Hmph. Not if I have anything to do with it.)

"Where do you think she is now?"

"Dead? Married? Who knows." Rude stroked the side of my face, staring at me. "I stopped wondering a long time ago."

"You don't think about her at all anymore?"

"I do sometimes. That's when I take out the pictures."

"Do you miss her?"

"Not really. Not anymore."

"Why not?"

He stared at me, face gentle. A flash of his expression from what I thought had been a dream went through my head, and suddenly, I felt very, very warm. And I felt safe. Rude made me feel safe.

At an almost inaudible volume, he said, "Why do you think?"

Then he kissed me. Slow. Languorous. Tingles down to my toes. That kind of kiss.

Then we got interrupted. Again. Sheesh, people, find something to do besides bother me! I'm great, I'm entertaining, I know. You can't keep yourselves away. But really, I don't want this attention all the time!

There was a knock, and Reno entered without being invited. I glared as he slipped in, hands in his pockets, slouching about.

He lifted his eyebrows as he saw me halfway in Rude's lap. "I see you're feelin' better, partner."

Rude smirked, tightening his arm around my waist. Wait, what the hell was this? Some sort of territorial claim? Reno smirked back.

Men. Even gay men. Psh.

"Well, I told you not to hurt my buddy, and what did you go and do, Kisaragi? You hurt his feelings."

"Reno," Rude said, his voice holding a warning.

Rude's partner-in-crime and a personal annoyance to me waved one hand lazily. "Nah, don't worry about it. I'm just here to say anyone who saves Rude's ass like that is okay in my book."

"Wait, wait, wait." I held up my hands, face serious. "You can _read?_"

Reno gave me the finger and continued. "And look at it this way, now that you saved his life with your patron god and all, none of the Turks will ever cross you again."

"No, seriously, I didn't even know you knew what books were."

"Anyway, I just wanted to drop in to see how Rude was doing." Reno looked at Rude's arm around my waist. "Seems just fine to me. Call me later, _pal_, and we'll go to a bar or something."

And with that, Reno was gone.

I turned to Rude, who looked at me and shrugged, obviously at a loss for words. Not that Rude ever really had that many words to begin with.

I shrugged as well. Whatever. Reno was weird. "So what's the deal? How'd Risa get a hold of you anyway?"

Turns out Risa broke out of the jail while Rude was in another part of the building, not _after_ he was gone. She checked all the cars in the parking lot and hid, waiting for him. And when it was dark, and Rude was leaving, she got the jump on him.

"Stupid of me," he said, scratching his head. "Should've seen her coming."

"Where was she hiding?"

"Behind the next car over. Hit me over the head with something."

I shrugged. "You couldn't have anticipated that. We all have our moments."

"Still."

Then, next thing he knew, he was waking up in a dark warehouse with crates everywhere. We assumed she must have taken his keys and ditched the car somewhere, then dragged him to the warehouse under the cover of darkness. Other crooks aren't gonna rat suspicious looking people out.

And with Rude's car missing from the lot like it was supposed to be, assuming he had taken it and departed to his hotel, no one at the jail had bothered to inform the WRO that Rude was missing. Because they didn't even know. They were too concerned with catching Risa.

"She hurt you," I said, frowning.

"Kicked my ass. A lot."

"Bitch."

"Yep. But you got me out." He caressed my face. He kissed me again, this one more insistent.

Ooh, Rude was getting his mojo back. I would have to take advantage of that later.

I pulled out a glowing red materia from one of my pouches. "You better thank Leviathan for saving your ass. If not for him, well. I dunno."

He placed a hand over mine on the shiny sphere and closed his eyes, seeming to think deeply. My eyes widened as the materia actually flashed brightly under his hand and then dimmed again.

"What was that?"

His eyes snapped open, meeting my inquisitive ones. "It said something."

"What? What'd it say?"

"It said… 'you're welcome.'"

I glared at it. "Sounds like Leviathan, all right."

Rude looked at me. I looked at Rude. And then I blurted something out.

"I think I might love you."

I clapped my hands over my mouth, flushing.

Rude laughed, then kissed my forehead. "I think I might love you too."

And that was good enough for me.

-

And so the princess found her prince, and they lived happily ever after. Not really, though. 'Cause that's just boring!

There was a lot of tongue-tied-ness, and blabbering, and mess-ups, and chicken at Tifa's bar, and getting drunk with Reno, and double dates with Cloud and Tifa (oh, awkward), and playing tiddlywinks with Cait Sith, and the prince helping the princess teach Marlene how to ride a bike, and explaining to Vincent how satellite TV works, and food fights, and pissing Reeve off, and miscommunications, and chalk drawings with Denzel, and terrible movies, and sleeping over, and dance parties.

There weren't any towers or girls with long hair, and there weren't any perfect sleeping beauties, and the princess was kind of a sucky princess, but she loved her country, and she loved her prince (she was just starting to realize that, really), and maybe she didn't suck at strong, quiet men like she thought she did. Maybe all the other men just sucked.

I'm Yuffie Kisaragi, and I have some personal philosophies. Hell if I'm gonna list 'em again. Infer for yourself. Make up your own or something. I have a prince to make out with.


End file.
